BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 



MILTON S.TERRY 




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Baccalaureate Sermons 

and Addresses 



V 

BY 

MILTON S. TERRY, A.M., D.D., LL.D. 

An 



Kijpvi-ov rdv Xoyov 
2 Timothy 4. 2 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



*X44^)"5 



Copyright, 19H, by 
MILTON S. TERRY 



SEP 24 i. 



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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Milton Spenser Terry — A Memoir vii 

Introductory xxvii 

I. The Hebrew Revelation 1 

II. The Christian Revelation 26 

III. The Greater Miracles 52 

IV. The Divine Vocation of the Man of God 76 

V. The Ministry of. the Gospel 98 

VI. God Revealed in Jesus Christ 122 

VII. The Esoteric Element in the Writings of John 147 

VIII. Religious and Philosophical Standpoint of 

Methodism in the Christian World 174 

IX. Address at the Centennial of the New York 

Conference 198 

X. The Communion of Saints 229 

Index 247 



j&mfm 






Miltox S. Terry at the Age of Twenty 



(Made from a photograph from which it was impossible 
to secure abetter reproduction.) 



MILTON SPENSER TERRY 
A MEMOIR 

While the pages of this volume were being 
prepared for publication, their author was en- 
joying a period of rest and recreation granted 
him by the trustees of Garrett Biblical Institute. 
It was the thirtieth year of his service as a 
teacher in the school, and by a special arrange- 
ment of hours he was enabled to give to his 
classes, during the first semester, the complete 
amount of work scheduled for the year. At the 
close of the semester a parting ovation and 
Godspeed were given him by the faculty and 
students, to which he replied with words of joy 
and hope, and cheerful anticipation of a later 
reunion. A few days later, rejoicing in the love 
and good wishes of hosts of friends, he started 
with the beloved companion of fifty years for a 
"honeymoon journey," to celebrate in California, 
the land of gold and sunshine and flowers, the 
golden anniversary of their wedding. 

The months that followed were very happy 

ones, carefree and easy, with leisure for the 

meditation and study which he loved, free too 

from the physical pain which had troubled him 

at times, and gladdened by sweet intercourse 

with old friends who did all in their power to 

give him pleasure and make him feel the love 

and esteem in which they held him. His soul 

vii 



viii MEMOIR 

loved always to dwell upon the heights, and so he 
chose for his abode a modest little apartment on 
one of the highest points in Los Angeles, from 
which he could overlook the surrounding city. 
Here the happy weeks sped swiftly by, and his 
thoughts were beginning to turn to plans for the 
return journey and the work that would await 
him at home. 

In the town of Covina, an hour's ride distant, 
he had found some old friends whom he had 
not seen for many years. They pleaded for the 
privilege of hearing him preach once more, and 
he gladly went a little later to grant their wish. 
He preached with all his accustomed vigor and 
enthusiasm. Taking the life of Jacob as his 
theme, he traced the progress of a great, strug- 
gling soul toward God. In his clear, winning 
way he pointed his hearers up the shining, angel- 
thronged ladder into the open heavens, into the 
very presence of the Great Father, little dream- 
ing that so soon his own soul would be wafted 
by the angels to its home with God. During the 
afternoon he suffered severe pain in his arm, 
and while journeying back to Los Angeles in 
the early evening he showed unusual weakness, 
but once arrived in the little home, he fell into 
a quiet, restful sleep. The wife who slept by his 
side was not conscious of any unusual restless- 
ness during the night, though in an early morn- 
ing conversation he said that it had been a night 
of pain. A few moments after this conversation 



MEMOIR ix 

there was a very brief, convulsive struggle for 
breath, the great, strong, loving heart ceased 
beating, and — 

He fell in his saintlike beauty 
Asleep by the gates of light. 

Quickly the wires flashed forth the message 
of his passing, and in every part of the world 
tears fell and heads were bowed in grief, while 
yet hearts rejoiced in his glorious euthanasia 
and exulted in the spotless beauty of his life and 
the tender love that had blessed and ennobled 
all who came within his influence. Friends 
gathered about the stricken wife and gave her 
every needed assistance as she bravely started 
on the long, sad journey eastward, while others 
as tenderly prepared for her coming. The fol- 
lowing Sunday afternoon, in the beautiful chapel 
at Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, the funeral 
services were held, and there, surrounded by a 
large gathering of friends, the loved form was 
laid in its last resting place, a spot which he 
himself had chosen because near by were sleep- 
ing many cherished friends who had gladdened 
his life in Evanston. 

The life of Milton Spenser Terry, like that of 
many another strong man, began amid very 
humble surroundings on a small, rocky farm in 
New York State. His home was in the midst of 
beautiful natural scenery. A few miles away 
was the Hudson River and from the little farm- 



x MEMOIR 

house the eye looked over rolling fields and wood- 
lands to the blue line of the Catskill Mountains. 
No luxuries were known in that home, but peace 
and plenty abode there with contentment. Godli- 
ness also was there and an atmosphere of simple, 
genuine piety. 

The family life was frugal and wholesome. 
Each one performed his share of hard toil, but 
the toil was brightened with fun and merriment, 
by happy intercourse with neighbors and friends, 
and by the simple pleasures of old-time rural 
life. There was many a winter evening by the 
fireside just like the one pictured in TVhittier's 
"Snow Bound." To this happy home circle he 
looked back through all the years of his life with 
a passionate love that never waned, and each 
year, almost without exception, he returned to 
wander over the familiar haunts of his boyhood, 
visit the brothers and sisters yet living and the 
graves of those who had gone beyond. 

On both sides his ancestry was American, 
reaching back in this country through several 
generations to early colonial times and thence 
to England and Scotland. His own character 
blended in a noticeable way certain conspicuous 
traits of his parents. His father, John Terry, 
was a Hicksite Quaker, a man of lofty spiritual- 
ity but of a gentle, genial temper, in his untaught 
way a mystic, who loved to meditate and dream 
upon "the unseen things." His mother, on the 
contrary, was intensely practical and possessed 



MEMOIR xi 

a tireless energy and a robust common sense 
which enabled her to care for and rear success- 
fully the eleven children whom she bore. Those 
who knew Milton Terry well recognized clearly 
in him the gentleness, the spirituality, and the 
mysticism of his father, balanced and held in 
check by the good sense and energy of his mother, 
which enabled him to accomplish successfully 
an amount of labor beyond the powers of most 
men. 

He was the youngest child of the family, com- 
ing to his parents in their late maturity, and on 
that account probably enjoying more of their 
personal attention and companionship than they 
had been able to give to the older children. As 
a little child he was delicate, but the wholesome 
outdoor life he lived soon overcame this weak- 
ness and built up instead a wiry strength and 
sound health which endured, in spite of a some- 
what slender and delicate appearance, through- 
out most of his life. He helped to preserve this 
strength by regular habits of life and daily exer- 
cise in the open air. His favorite pastime as a 
boy was' hunting for small game in the woods 
and fields about his home, and he continued to 
delight in this for years. Many of his friends 
and parishioners recall pleasantly a picture of 
his slender form tramping sturdily over the hills 
with a gun and a game-bag over his shoulder, 
stopping as he passed their homes for a merry 
chat or to share their hospitable board. His 



xii MEMOIR 

chief delight was not in the game lie secured but 
in rambling in the open, in communion Avith 
nature and God. He became an indefatigable 
pedestrian, and even within the last year of his 
life could climb the highest Adirondack peaks 
without undue fatigue. 

In early boyhood he began to show the in- 
stincts of the student and scholar. The little 
home did not possess many books, but their 
quality was of the best. The Bible, Milton, and 
Shakespeare furnished the literary food upon 
which he first fed. The Bible was always his 
first love, truly the Book of books, to which he 
devoted a lifetime of patient, thorough, and 
reverent study. Next in his affections, perhaps 
because of the name he bore, stood Milton's great 
epic. When he was fifteen years old a brother 
presented him with a small volume of Milton's 
poems which remained one of his most cherished 
possessions throughout his life. He soon com- 
mitted large sections, even whole books, of 
"Paradise Lost" to memory and could recite them 
with moving power and beauty. His mental 
ability was marked, but the path to learning was 
not made easy for him. He was severely handi- 
capped by lack of means and therefore was 
denied the privilege, which so many enjoy, of 
spending long years in scholastic halls at the feet 
of inspiring teachers. Only a few brief and inter- 
rupted periods of such delight were granted to 
him. The rest of the way he toiled on alone, 



MEMOIR xiii 

spurred by an un flinching determination to 
reach the farthest goal in spite of all difficulties. 

Because of a sensitive shyness and great diffi- 
culty in surmounting the perplexities of arith- 
metic, he did not much enjoy his first few years 
in the district school, but at fourteen years of 
age, under an unusually inspiring teacher, a 
college man, he suddenly awoke to a keen realiza- 
tion of the riches of knowledge that might be 
found by the earnest seeker, and from that time 
on his thirst for study was insatiable, leading 
him to the thorough, broad scholarship for which 
he became distinguished. Three years later he 
went to study at the New York Conference 
Seminary at Charlotteville, New York. After 
completing about half of the course there offered 
he was obliged to stop and teach for two years 
in order to earn the means to complete the 
course. Though regretting the interruption, he 
always felt that the teaching was a valuable 
experience and the old fashioned custom of 
"boarding around" in the homes of the pupils a 
good preparation for later pastoral work in the 
homes of the common people. He kept up his 
studies all this time so that when he returned 
to the seminary he was enabled to complete his 
course quickly. 

Eagerly now he planned for a college course. 
Under the patronage of the Methodist Church 
a new university had recently been established 
at Troy, New York, with a distinguished faculty 



xiv MEMOIR 

and ambitious plans. Being near his home, he 
decided to enter there. In the early summer he 
went to Troy and passed with credit all the 
entrance examinations, intending to begin work 
at the opening of the fall session, but his plans 
were thwarted. Having become somewhat known 
as a local preacher, he went a little later to 
supply the pulpit of his brother, David Terry, 
at Hancock, New York, during the vacation of 
the latter. This brother suddenly sickened and 
died, and the young local preacher was asked to 
continue supplying the church for the balance of 
the Conference year. Later there came a severe 
attack of diphtheria, and when, after slow con- 
valescence, he had regained his wonted strength 
and was ready once more for study, Troy Uni- 
versity had been obliged through inadequate 
financial support to close its doors. He had been 
studying diligently during the period of teach- 
ing and preaching, and had in reality covered 
by himself a great part of the subjects then con- 
stituting the college course. Having by this time 
made up his mind definitely that he was called 
to preach, he gave up all further effort toward 
attendance at college and decided instead to 
spend a year in the Yale Divinity School. This 
was one of the greatest privileges of his life. 
Under the instruction of such scholars as Had- 
ley, Timothy D wight, George P. Fisher, Noah 
Porter, and President Woolsey his mental out- 
look was greatly broadened, and his eager mind 



MEMOIR xv 

was quickened to most intense activity. He 
studied diligently day and night and reveled in 
the libraries which were to him treasure houses 
far surpassing any that Aladdin's lamp revealed. 
To the end of his days he remained a student, 
ever searching for truth and knowledge wher- 
ever they could be found, in many lands and 
languages. Though denied further academic 
training, his own efforts soon carried him far 
beyond the bounds of the ordinary college 
curriculums, and he early attracted attention 
for deep scholarship. The degrees which he 
afterward received from several universities 
were given in recognition of his scholastic attain- 
ments as shown in his writings. Though primar- 
ily a theologian and philosopher, he delighted 
in the study of language and literature. He was 
a finished master of Hebrew and Greek, and had 
acquired a working knowledge of nine lan- 
guages, ancient and modern, besides his own. 
He usually retired quite early in the evening, 
but often, especially in his younger days, his 
student lamp was burning as early as four o'clock 
in the morning while he sat poring over his 
books, oblivious to all about him. 

Soon after leaving Yale he sought and received 
an appointment, under the New York Annual 
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
at Hamden, New York. Though receiving his 
earliest religious impressions in the little Quaker 
meetinghouse near his home, he became inter- 



xvi MEMOIR 

ested, when still a boy, in the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, which he joined at eighteen years 
of age, and to it gave a long life of faithful, 
loyal service. Within the bounds of the New 
York Conference he served nearly twenty-three 
years — nineteen as a pastor and four as presiding 
elder of the New York District. His preaching 
was spoken of as distinctly expository in char- 
acter, but it was always simple and clear, full 
of helpful suggestions and exhortations, and 
often deeply emotional. He delighted in preach- 
ing, and it could be said of him, as of the Master 
Avhose truths he so faithfully proclaimed, that 
wherever he went "the people heard him gladly." 
This was true in the city or in the country, and 
among all classes of people. It was his custom 
to go each summer, during his vacation, to the 
little mountain town where his wife's family 
lived. When his coming was known the churches 
of all denominations joined in a great union 
service, and people from the countryside for 
miles around drove in to hear him preach, 
crowding the church to overflowing and standing 
outside the doors and windows all about. His 
face would light up with enthusiasm and glow 
with a holy fervor as he "broke the bread of life" 
to these hungry listeners, who seldom had the 
privilege of hearing such preaching as his. 
Bishop McDowell said, in his address at the 
funeral, that a number of the Eastern Methodists 
had expressed the thought that the Methodist 



MEMOIR xvii 

pulpit lost one of its greatest preachers when 
Dr. Terry became a teacher, but this was true 
only in a technical sense. As a matter of fact, 
he continued to preach frequently, and his pulpit 
services were in constant demand up to the very 
end, when he arose almost directly from the pul- 
pit to the presence of the Father. 

As a pastor too he was eminently successful. 
He always knew his people well, and was a wel- 
come visitor in their homes. It was his regular 
custom, while in the pastorate, to spend the 
morning hours in his study and the afternoon 
in calling on his people, often making fifteen or 
twenty calls in a single afternoon. His genial 
sociability made him equally at home with young 
and old, Avith sick and poor, welcome alike in 
times of joy or of affliction and sorrow. The 
custom of the church at that time permitted him 
to remain only three years in each pastorate, but 
he had a remarkable way of keeping in touch 
with the people of the churches he had served 
after ceasing to be officially their pastor. He re- 
visited frequently throughout his life his former 
charges, and wherever he traveled took particular 
delight in hunting up old parishioners, often 
submitting himself to considerable inconven- 
ience and delay in order to do so. 

When he was forty-four years of age his labors 
were changed to a new field. It was inevitable 
that the scholarly and prolific writings coming 
from his pen should attract the attention of the 



xviii MEMOIR 

educational institutions of the church and cause 
his name to be mentioned when chairs of learn- 
ing were vacant. He accepted an election to a 
professorship in Garrett Biblical Institute, bade 
a rather reluctant farewell to the familiar scenes 
of his early manhood, and established his home 
in the beautiful city of Evanston, where he had 
lived ever since. Here for thirty years he gave 
the very best of his great ability to his students, 
to the Institute and its interests, and through 
them to the church he loved. For the first twelve 
years he held the chair of Old Testament 
language and literature and was then trans- 
ferred, after the death of Dr. Miner Raymond, 
to the chair of Christian doctrine, the field which 
he really preferred. He had "come into his 
own," for he was preeminently a great teacher — 
thorough, interesting, and inspiring. Thousands 
of students passed under his influence and now 
testify unanimously to the help they received 
from him. They speak not only of admiring his 
great learning and ability, but especially of their 
admiration for the saintly beauty of his char- 
acter and the love they bore him as a man and 
as a friend. The following paragraph, quoted 
from an editorial in the Northwestern Christian 
Advocate, states clearly and concisely his 
methods and influence as a teacher: 

"Dr. Terry's great and outstanding work is as 
a teacher of teachers. For nearly a generation he 
influenced the thinking and the religions life of 



MEMOIR xix 

men who are now the religious leaders of the 
community in which they live and work. The 
central aim of his teaching method was to train 
men to think for themselves. Nothing is so fatal 
in religion as to be an echo of another's experi- 
ence or way of thinking. Dr. Terry daringly 
and, to our mind, rightly allowed the students 
to thresh out their own problems in their own 
way. Help them he would always and with 
infinite patience, but he resolutely refused to 
furnish them ready-made opinions on the great 
and fundamental problems of religion. To him 
it was more important that they should think, 
even if they should suffer. And some suffered 
no doubt. But they suffered only to rejoice later 
in Dr. Terry's method and determination, for 
out of such fiery trial they came with a new and 
richer experience of the deep things of God 
whom, but for such trial, they must ever have 
known with abatement of reality and sureness. 
There is hardly a community the wide world 
over in which there is not a student of Dr. 
Terry's giving thanks upon every remembrance 
of this glorious revealer of the heart of God." 

The thoughts and teachings of Dr. Terry 
reached a far wider circle through his activities 
as an author. It is not necessary to give here a 
list of the sixteen volumes which he published. 
Of these there was a great trilogy which he had 
planned in his youth and which he completed 
seven years before his death — Biblical Her- 



xx MEMOIR 

nieneutics, Biblical Apocalyptics, and Biblical 
Dogmatics. These received wide recognition for 
their clear thought and deep scholarship, and 
were used as textbooks in the theological schools 
of other denominations as well as those of his 
own church. Some of his work has been trans- 
lated into foreign languages for use in mission 
fields. Throughout his fifty-two years of active 
life he was a constant and frequent contributor 
to the religious periodicals of the country. 
Chancellor Burwash, of Victoria University, 
Toronto, thus sums up his literary activities : 

"He has created a field of his own in Methodist 
theological literature, a field demanding rare 
scholarship and research, historic imagination, 
and deep mystic sympathy with the prophetic 
writers both of the Old Testament and the New. 
It is such a deep religious spirit which preserves 
the modern historical interpretation from its 
greatest dangers and calls forth its richest con- 
tributions to the elucidation of the Spirit-given 
Word." 

He was a progressive thinker, open-minded to 
all new theories, a fearless searcher after truth. 
But his thinking was constructive. He never 
tore down an edifice until he was sure he had 
something better to build in its place. He never 
lost his way in the maze of conflicting theories 
and controversies which have agitated theo- 
logical thought in recent years, but moved 
steadily forward, courageously abandoning be- 



MEMOIR xxi 

liefs which he could no longer hold, while always 
finding what seemed to him ampler, richer reve- 
lations of truth to take their place. Since he 
was in advance of the majority of his church in 
his thinking, it was inevitable that he should 
have to submit to criticism and censure, to mis- 
understanding, and even to gross misrepresenta- 
tion and abuse, the hardest of all to bear; but 
he fought valiantly for what he believed to be 
the truth. In recent years many have expressed 
the belief that the greatest service he rendered 
the church was in the courageous and successful 
struggle he made for freedom and open-minded- 
ness in biblical interpretation. 

He was broadly sympathetic with genuine 
religious intention and feeling in whatever form 
it might express itself. In his later years he 
had become a thorough student of comparative 
religion, and he recognized in every form of 
religious belief, no matter how crude and revolt- 
ing its expression, sincere though often blind 
searching after God and his truth. The Jew, 
the Roman Catholic, the follower of one of the 
newer cults, even the devout Mohammedan or 
Buddhist, found in him not a harsh, prejudiced 
critic but a sympathetic fellow worshiper of the 
one great God, who recognized the sincerity of 
their convictions, though he felt that they had 
failed to grasp God's fullest revelation of 
himself. 

An enumeration of the attainments of this 



xxii MEMOIR 

versatile man would not be complete without 
mention of the fact that he possessed poetic gifts. 
In the homes of his friends are scattered sonnets 
and bits of verse from his pen, written in playful 
mood or in times of deep emotion. He especially 
loved epic poetry and had made a thorough study 
of the world's great epics. During the last two 
or three years of his life he kept always upon his 
library table at home, and carried with him 
wherever he went, a one-volume collection of 
the poems of Homer in the original Greek. This 
he would pick up in every leisure moment and 
read with never-ending, delighted interest. His 
reading of Milton's "Paradise Lost" was a joy 
to those who heard it, the majestic periods roll- 
ing forth like the strains of a great organ. 

It is comparatively easy to sketch the life and 
attainments of such a man, but to give a true 
portrait of his personality is a far more difficult 
task. He was not endowed with perfection of 
feature, but his face was one that men loved to 
look upon. It was an expressive face, changing 
ever with the passing thoughts and emotions 
within. A merry twinkle often lingered in the 
clear, bright eyes, but their glance could also 
convey deep sympathy and comfort, keen interest 
and kindly love, or flash with indignation at in- 
justice and wrong. Meanness or iniquity of any 
sort cowered before their steadfast gaze. lie 
was gifted with a voice of unusual beauty, clear 
and musical, especially in its lower tones. His 



MEMOIR xxiii 

reading of a poem or hymn was often as beauti- 
ful and moving as a song could be. 

He was a companionable man. His genial good 
humor and bright stories interested all who met 
him and made those of all ages and classes feel 
at home in his presence. The spotless purity of 
his life and thought shone from his face, and no 
one could doubt his absolute sincerity. In spite 
of the large amount of work he accomplished he 
never seemed unduly hurried, but always had 
time for a kindly service or the little courtesies 
of everyday life. In the highest sense of the 
word he was a gentleman, courteous, considerate, 
ever thoughtful of the happiness of others. But 
the greatest of all the Christian virtues is love, 
and he was preeminently a great lover. He loved 
his God with a whole-hearted devotion, and he 
loved his brother man with a warmth that could 
not but awaken love in return. The one note 
that sounds in all of the many tributes and 
letters of sympathy that have come to his family 
is — "We loved him." 

The home of such a man, with a wife as saintly 
in character as himself, could not be other than 
a heavenly place. His children were reared in 
an atmosphere of tenderest love and care. 
Patiently he guided them into the paths he 
would have them follow, holding ever before 
them the high ideals of Christian character which 
he himself exemplified. He was ever the com- 
panion as well as the father. Their friends were 



xxiv MEMOIR 

his friends, their interests, their joys, and sorrows 
were his own. Such a heritage of love and honor 
as he left is to them a treasure far surpassing 
the wealth of all the Avorld. 

Many have heard Dr. Terry's sermon on the 
"Communion of Saints," for which he used as a 
text Hebrews, twelfth chapter, verses twenty- 
two to twenty-four — "But ye are come unto 
mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, 
the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable 
hosts of angels, to the general assembly and 
church of the firstborn who are enrolled in 
heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the 
spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus 
the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood 
of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of 
Abel." This blessed communion, which he be- 
lieved to be the privilege of every child of God, 
he himself had experienced through life, and now 
he has gone on into its fuller joys, a "just man 
made perfect," holy and undefiled before God. 



CHRONOLOGY 

1840. Born at Coeymans, Albany County, N. Y., 

February 22. 
1857-1859. At Charlotteville Seminary, Charlotteville, N. Y. 
1860. Licensed to preach, January 28. 

1860-1861. Supplied church at Hancock, N. Y. 
1862. At Yale Divinity School. 

1862-1864. Supplied church at Hamden, N. Y. 
1864. Ordained a Deacon in the Methodist Episcopal 

Church. Married to Frances 0. Atchinson, 

of Hamden. 
1864-1867. Pastor at Delhi, N. Y. 
1866. Ordained an Elder. 

1867-1870. Pastor of Saint Paul's Church in Peekskill, N. Y. 
1868-1873. Wrote Old Testament Commentaries — Joshua- 
Samuel. 
1870-1873. Pastor of Cannon Street Church in Pough- 

keepsie, N. Y. 
1873-1876. Pastor of Eighteenth Street Church in New 

York City. 
1874. Wrote commentaries on Kings-Esther. 

1876-1879. Pastor of the Rondout Church in Kingston, N. Y. 
1879-1883. Presiding Elder of the New York District, New 

York Conference. 
1880. Delegate from the New York Conference to the 

General Conference at Cincinnati, Ohio. 
1880-1883. Wrote Biblical Hermeneutics. 
1883-1884. Pastor of Forty-third Street Church in New 

York City. 
1884. Elected to the chair of Old Testament Exegesis 

in Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, 111. 
1887. Attended lectures at the University of Berlin 

and at other German universities. 
1888-1898. Wrote Biblical Apocalyptics. 
1891. Delegate to the Methodist Ecumenical Confer- 

ence at Washington. 
1891-1896. Lecturer on the English Bible at Northwestern 

University. 

1896. Delegate from the Wisconsin Conference to the 

General Conference at Cleveland, O. 
1896-1897. Wrote The New Apologetic. 

1897. Elected to the chair of Christian Doctrine, 

Apologetics, and Comparative Religion in 
Garrett Biblical Institute. 

1897-1901. Wrote Moses and the Prophets. 

1904. Delegate from the Wisconsin Conference to 

the General Conference at Los Angeles, Cal. 

1900-1907. Wrote Biblical Dogmatics. 

1911. Delegate to the Methodist Ecumenical Confer- 

ence at Toronto. 

1914. Died at Los Angeles, Cal., July 13. 

xxv 



INTRODUCTORY 

It seems to me hardly proper to impose a vol- 
ume of sermons on the public without a few 
words of preliminary egotism. I was born and 
reared a Hicksite Quaker, but when eight or nine 
years old I committed to memory the Heidelberg 
Catechism under the kindly guidance of a minis- 
ter of the Reformed Dutch Church. I re- 
ceived my theological seminary training in the 
Divinity School of Yale College, where I fell 
in love with the Congregationalists. My his- 
torical studies begat in me a great admiration of 
the Lutheran churches both of Europe and in 
the United States. Meanwhile I received over- 
tures from a Presbyterian church, and later from 
a Reformed Dutch church to become their pas- 
tor. But in the face of all these facts I deliber- 
ately chose to become a Methodist Episcopalian. 
I ought to add, perhaps, that in my early ministry 
I engaged in a few strenuous encounters with the 
Baptists, and withal acquired such skill in the 
controversies of the time that I could show (as 
I thought) that Philip and the eunuch both of 
them went down into the water and came up out 
of the water, and that neither of them wet so 
much as the sole of his foot ! But long ago I put 
away some childish things, and in these riper 
years I find myself in very close communion with 
my Baptist brethren. 

xxvii 



xxviii INTRODUCTORY 

I was licensed to preach in 1860, while yet a 
student, and for more than twenty-two years I 
did the work of a pastor. For twenty-four years 
I was a member of the New York Conference, and 
for the last twenty-seven years I have been a 
member of the Wisconsin Conference. During the 
last thirty years my work has been that of a pro- 
fessor of theology in the Garrett Biblical Insti- 
tute. During these years I have been a teacher 
of the Hebrew language, Old Testament exegesis, 
Christian doctrine, and comparative religion. 

As I now look backward from the serene 
heights of more than three score years and ten, 
I find myself continuously giving thanks to the 
everlasting Father for his manifold mercies. As 
an old pilgrim to the better country and to "the 
city which hath the foundations," I feel myself 
in a blessed communion with an innumerable 
company of choice spirits both in the earth and 
in the heavens. To use the terms of Bunyan's 
allegory, I have journeyed all the way from the 
Wicket Gate to the Land of Beulah. I have seen 
again and again the glorious vision of the Cross, 
and have had many a burden rolled away. I have 
toiled up many a hill of Difficulty and have es- 
caped the mouths of lions by the way. I have 
reposed in the palace Beautiful and have also 
encountered Apollyon in the Valley of Humilia- 
tion. I have learned how the shadow of death 
can be turned into the morning. I have known 
something of Doubting Castle, but have never 



INTRODUCTORY xxix 

fallen into the hands of Giant Despair. I have 
frequently walked on the Delectable Mountains 
and received most helpful counsels from the expe- 
rienced shepherds of those hills of God. And 
now, in life's late afternoon, I find myself 
among the orchards and gardens and arbors of 
the land of Beulah, where sunlight and shadow 
are alike inspiring and the Celestial City is not 
far away. 

After this unbroken ministry of more than fifty 
years it has seemed good to put forth this little 
volume of selected sermons and addresses. I 
have had a part in the making of many books : 
this one may serve in part to show forth the 
ideals of a minister of Christ which I have la- 
bored for the last thirty years to impress upon 
the thousand and more pupils who have come un- 
der my instruction. To fill the high place and 
discharge the duties of one who is truly called of 
God to the gospel ministry, one should study to 
be apostle, prophet, preacher, evangelist, pastor, 
and teacher. God calls no two men in exactly 
the same way; each must have his own distinc- 
tive vision and hear for himself the "still small 
voice." My own divine call to the ministry re- 
mains indelibly imprinted in my memory, and I 
shall here repeat it as I told it years ago. 1 

Had we a volume recording in detail the real 
experiences of John Bunyan, John Wesley, Jon- 
athan Edwards, Charles H. Spurgeon, Matthew 

1 In The Epworth Herald of February 1, 190S. 



xxx INTRODUCTORY 

Simpson, and Phillips Brooks, touching their 
personal call to the ministry of the gospel, it 
would doubtless furnish a very forcible and a 
useful confirmation of the belief that God speaks 
to men now as truly as in the ancient times. 
Who has not also heard simple and illiterate 
servants of Christ declare how they were divinely 
led, often against their will, into ministries of 
blessed usefulness? And the real heavenly 
character of their divine call was openly estab- 
lished by their beautiful "work of faith and labor 
of love and patience of hope." 

With most ministers of the gospel the convic- 
tion of their divine call by the Holy Spirit would 
probably be a very simple story. There was no 
open miracle, no supernatural visions and 
dreams, but rather, a series of events, or a suc- 
cession of convictions, working within and pro- 
ducing at last an unmistakable revelation of a 
call to obvious duty in a specific way. The real- 
ity of such calls should not be questioned. 

How far one should relate the details of such 
personal experiences may be a question of good 
taste. There are some sacred secrets of a per- 
sonal kind which one does well to keep to him- 
self and with God. But there are others which 
may well be told as illustrations of Avhat is not 
uncommon in the Christian life, but living evi- 
dences of the continuous ministry of the Holy 
Spirit. 

I was the youngest of the eleven children of 



INTRODUCTORY xxxi 

my mother, and she used to say to me again and 
again, while I was but a little child, that, before 
her marriage to my father, a fortune teller told 
her that her youngest son would be a Methodist 
preacher. This weird report was treated rather 
lightly in our family circle, and had, I think, 
less influence on my mind than some of the dis- 
turbing ghost stories which I heard at the same 
fireside. 

My early life was passed in the seclusion of a 
rural home, quite apart from the sights and 
noises of village and city life. I was made famil- 
iar from childhood with thoughts of God, and 
with current ideals of the world of spirits and 
the heavenly home. I went to "Quaker meeting" 
with my parents and became familiar with the 
customs and teachings of the Friends. 

A minister of the Reformed Dutch Church 
made semimonthly visits to the district school 
where I attended, and, after school hours, would 
drill those of us who were willing to remain in 
the Heidelberg Catechism. When from twelve 
to fifteen years of age I attended quite regularly 
the Methodist church and Sunday school at 
Coeyman's Hollow, New York, a, town which 
was three miles distant from my father's house. 

I became a member of that church when I was 
eighteen, but some time before I was willing to 
join the church the Methodist preachers of that 
circuit repeatedly hinted to me that I must 
sooner or later become a minister of the gospel. 



xxxii INTRODUCTORY 

I treated the matter somewhat indifferently; 
but, being of an obliging disposition and some- 
what easily persuaded, I allowed my name to be 
presented in regular form, and was first given 
license as an exhorter, and, a year later, as a local 
preacher. But I cannot remember that in all 
these procedures I felt any deep or serious con- 
victions of a divine call. I really had other 
plans, and did not look upon the work of 
the preacher and pastor as an object to be chosen 
or desired. 

The determining experiences and the crucial 
hour of my ministerial call first came vividly 
when I had reached the age of twenty years. I 
had entered college, and, being a local preacher, 
I went to Hancock, New York, during the sum- 
mer vacation, to supply for a month the pulpit of 
my brother David, who was a member (on pro- 
bation) of the New York Conference. He was 
greatly beloved by the people, and for his sake, 
and partly because of my own youth, I was re- 
ceived with no little tenderness and forbearance, 
and when, at the end of the four weeks, the bitter 
tidings came that my brother had suddenly died 
of malarial fever in a distant State, there came 
along with the tearful message a burning ques- 
tion I could not thrust aside : "Am I my broth- 
er's keeper?" 

In no such spirit or sense as these words fell 
from the lips of Cain did they burn their way 
into my soul. The burden grew much more 



INTRODUCTORY xxxiii 

heavy when, the next day, through the sponta- 
neous and unanimous action of the church, 
pressed upon me with additional persistent argu- 
ment and appeal, I was persuaded to stay there 
the remaining eight months of the Conference 
year and do the best I could to meet the respon- 
sibilities of that important charge. Through all 
those strange events of a mysterious Providence 
I clearly heard the voice of the Great Shepherd 
and Bishop of souls saying to me, "Behold, thou 
art thus made the keeper of thy brother's charge." 

The labor of those nine months of preaching 
and of pastoral work proved very trying, for 
with it all I undertook, in absentia, to keep up 
also with my college classes. But all these expe- 
riences perhaps might not have determined my 
convictions of a divine call to the ministry had 
it not been for several particular events which 
made a profound impression on my heart, and 
which abide in my thought and memory as of the 
nature of specific heavenly revelations. Two of 
these incidents I will here relate. 

,They were nothing so marvelous in themselves 
that I should speak of them as revelations of 
God. I might perhaps better call them spiritual 
admonitions. They were not essentially differ- 
ent from what hundreds have experienced who 
had no call to preach the gospel. Their signifi- 
cance for me was their peculiar connection with 
a crucial period of my life. 

One of these inwardly eventful experiences oc- 



xxxiv INTRODUCTORY 

curred at a prayer meeting in a very humble cot- 
tage some distance out of the town. It was at the 
home of an aged widow whose infirmities pre- 
vented her attendance at the church. Thither 
one evening six devout brethren and sisters ac- 
companied me to hold, as they said, "an old- 
fashioned prayer meeting," and also to cheer and 
comfort the aged saint, who had requested such 
a visit. We all prayed and all spoke freely of 
the love of God shed in our hearts by the Holy 
Spirit, and at the close I was moved in spirit to 
lead them all in prayer once more. 

During that prayer I was lifted up with an 
unwonted ecstasy of spiritual fervor, and seemed 
to behold for the moment visions and revelations 
of God. And everyone in that little company 
seemed to be smitten with the same power from 
on high, and several of them fell prostrate and 
remained in that condition some time after the 
prayer had ended. The aged widow was unable 
to rise from her rocking chair and continued for 
several minutes in exclamations of thanksgiving 
and praise to God. 

That event made a deep and lasting impression 
upon all of us who witnessed it, and was spoken 
of years afterward as an experience at the very 
gate of heaven. It even haunts me now, and 
many a time, in moments of quiet reflection, I 
find myself carried away in spirit to that little 
cottage at the foot of the mountain, kneeling 
again with the little company of worshipers and 



INTRODUCTORY xxxv 

feeling my heart strangely thrilled with unmis- 
takable power from on high. 

Another experience which had for me the value 
of a revelation of God came to me in an upper 
room of another little cottage some five or six 
miles distant from the one just referred to. I 
was accustomed to go once a month to a small 
settlement in the hills, a kind of permanent log- 
ging camp on an upper branch of the Delaware 
River, where fifteen or twenty people willingly 
came together to hear the gospel. In one little 
cabin near the river lived an aged couple, w T ho had 
been among the earliest settlers in that region, 
and who always welcomed my visits with excep- 
tional kindness and regard. The old man enter- 
tained me time and again with thrilling accounts 
of his running rafts down the river at the time of 
freshets, and of his encounters with panthers and 
other wild beasts in the former days. 

I was repeatedly invited to stop over night 
with them in their little home, but I felt it expe- 
dient to decline, for I saw only one room in the 
house, with a bed in one corner, a stove in 
another, and a table in another and no sep- 
arate room or proper corner for a stranger- 
guest. But as the cordial invitation was re- 
peated and so sincerely given, I resolved to 
accept for once, believing I could stand it if 
they could. 

When the hour for retiring came the old man 
stepped outside the door and returned a moment 



xxxvi INTRODUCTORY 

later with a short ladder, with one end of which 
he pushed open a small trap-door in the ceiling 
above, and, setting up the ladder into the open- 
ing, he handed me a lighted candle, said I would 
find my sleeping-room above, and kindly bade 
me good night. I found in that upper chamber 
a stand on which to place the candlestick, a 
chair, and a neat feather-bed. The ladder was 
at once removed, but the door was left open. 

Never probably have I enjoyed a sweeter or 
sounder night's sleep than in that attic room. 
But long before daylight I was awakened by 
movements in the room below. The old folks 
were astir, making unusual preparations for the 
breakfast, and I could hear them speak of "the 
minister." Those words suddenly thrilled me 
like a voice out of heaven. I had thought of 
myself only as a young man, or, rather, as a 
schoolboy. I had an ambition to be an accom- 
plished scholar, but the idea that I was already 
in some sense "the minister" came to me then 
and there as a surprising revelation. 

In that morning hour, in that attic chamber, 
above the sound of the swiftly rolling river, there 
came to me a voice more impressive than the 
sound of many waters, startling me with the 
thought — "You are God's minister !" 

I perceived that those good old folks in the 
room below did not think of me as the schoolboy, 
or merely as a young man, but as a minister of 
Christ, whom they would care for and honor 



INTRODUCTORY xxxvii 

as they would the Lord himself. And with that 
burning thought came also the abiding convic- 
tion that I was not my own : I must be the 
willing and obedient servant of Jesus Christ 
whithersoever he might lead me on. 

These reminiscences may be of little interest 
to the reader of these lines, and some may regard 
them as a kind of mystic hallucination. But the 
spell of that far time is on me still, and those 
deep convictions of my early calling have never 
been shaken for an hour. 

It was my privilege during the summer of 
1907 to revisit the beautiful hills and the places 
of my earliest ministry. I walked out to the 
little cottage where we held the memorable 
prayer meeting with the aged widow, forty-seven 
years before, and I found the old house desolate 
and unoccupied. I entered the open door and 
stood within the room and on the very sj)ot 
where I once felt the gift of heavenly power. 
Not one of that little company which met to- 
gether there so long ago, except myself, is living 
now on earth. To me the place whereon I stood 
was holy ground. 

I also sought out the spot far up the beautiful 
river where that other little cottage stood nearly 
half a century ago, and where I was so kindly 
welcomed and heard the heavenly voice, but I 
could find no trace even of its foundation. Only 
one house remains of all the little hamlet where 
once I tried to preach the Word of Truth. 



xxxviii INTRODUCTORY 

I lingered with tender feeling by the side of the 
river and called to mind the little house, and 
the dear old folks, and the attic chamber, and 
the voices and footsteps which I heard below 
me in the quiet of that far-off morning. And 
then again, it seemed to me, I could hear the 
Spirit saying, "Take heed to the ministry which 
thou hast received in the Lord, that thou ful- 
fill it." 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 1 

The Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament 
embody the religious history and beliefs of the 
descendants of Abraham, and may be appropri- 
ately called the Hebrew Revelation. They were 
received and treated by Jesus Christ and his 
apostles as sacred books, having divine authority, 
and worthy to be diligently studied for "doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, and for instruction 
in righteousness." Extravagant notions of their 
character and purpose have been entertained 
both among Jews and Christians. A doc- 
trine of inspiration has been taught which log- 
ically annihilates the human element. False 
methods of interpretation have also been current, 
and thereby many a modern fancy has been read 
into these ancient oracles of God. Furthermore, 
some Christian teachers have exhibited a dispo- 
sition to disparage the Old Testament. They 
have told us that it is the very imperfect product 
of a darker age, and has been entirely super- 
seded by the gospel revelation. Others, have 
grown bitter in their judgments, and, in direct 
opposition to the apostles, have affirmed that the 



1 Inaugural Address as Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis in, 
Garrett Biblical Institute. 



2 BACCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

Hebrew Scriptures are unfit for doctrine and 
instruction in righteousness. 

We can have no controversy with the propo- 
sition that Jesus Christ is the greatest of all 
teachers, and the gospel revelation is far in 
advance of any other revelation the world has 
known. "Though we, or an angel from heaven, 
should preach any other gospel, let him be anath- 
ema." But we do affirm that the ancient Hebrew 
revelation was given by God as truly as the gos- 
pel of Jesus, and we also say, with much assur- 
ance, that the New Testament revelation con- 
tains no essential truth or doctrine which may 
not be seen in some form in the older Scriptures. 
The highest and holiest lesson taught by Jesus, 
in which all the law and all prophetic revelation 
center, is the twofold commandment of love: 
First, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart; and second, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself. But, turning to that ancient law 
which was given through Moses, I find there these 
very words. It detracts nothing from the excel- 
lence of the Golden Rule that it antedates the 
coming of Christ, and is found in negative form 
even among the sayings of Confucius. Nor does 
it lessen our admiration for the Lord's Prayer 
that its several petitions were current in rab- 
binic formulas before the birth of Jesus. Our 
Lord's preeminence is seen in putting those peti- 
tions in such perfect form, shorn of all vain 
repetitions. So we affirm that the Hebrew Rev- 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 3 

elation contains the substance of the New Tes- 
tament. The gospel is as truly, if not as fully, in 
the law and the prophets and the Psalms as in 
Matthew and John and the epistles of Paul. 

A Literary Treasure 

Let us, first, consider the Old Testament 
merely as a literary treasure. It will be con- 
ceded, I think, without question that the Hebrew 
Scriptures furnish us more exalted strains of 
poetry and specimens of more impassioned elo- 
quence than any other sacred book in the world, 
not excepting the New Testament. Many of the 
profound and beautiful thoughts so character- 
istic of the Gospel of John are found for sub- 
stance in the Hebrew Psalms and Prophets; and 
John's Apocalypse, the most gorgeous and artis- 
tic of all works of its class, contains scarcely a 
figure or symbol which is not borrowed from the 
older Scriptures. 

The Hebrew literature is unique among the 
written monuments of antiquity. Considered 
merely as a field for philological research, it 
opens to the student of language a world of ab- 
sorbing interest. The Indo-European tongues, 
of which our own is but a stem, are more readily 
mastered by the Western mind. But the Hebrew 
language, with a vocabulary of about seven thou- 
sand words, represents many of the oldest fea- 
tures of Semitic speech, and has a grandeur 
peculiar to itself. He who would master all its 



4 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

principles should make himself familiar with its 
cognate dialects, the Aramaean and the Syriac, 
the wide extended and voluminous Arabic, and 
the ancient Assyrian, now suddenly speaking 
from the exhumed columns and slabs of Nineveh. 
He should also study the fragments of the old 
Phenician, and other monuments of Semitic 
races with whom the Israelitish people came in 
contact. The Samaritan and the Ethiopic will 
also lend him aid. But what a field is here! 
What lifetime long enough to traverse such a 
prairie ! Happy he who only attains a fair com- 
mand of the three sacred tongues. The noblest 
specimen of Indo-European speech is the clas- 
sical Greek, "Whose lofty music graced the lips 
of Jove." It has a beauty and perfection like 
the famous Parthenon, and wisely did the divine 
Founder of Christianity consecrate its potent 
formulas of thought to enshrine and preserve 
the gospel revelation. But as a linguistic study 
the New Testament Greek has not the richness 
of the old classic authors. A portion of the Old 
Testament is in Aramaean, but those few chapters 
of Daniel and Ezra have no literary beauty that 
we should desire them. Their chief value is like 
that of the huge slabs lately dug from the ruins 
of old Babylonian palaces, whose inscriptions 
testify that God once spoke to those barbaric 
kings in their golden splendor. But if the Greek 
may be likened to the Parthenon, and the Ara- 
maean to the broken relics of fallen monarchies, 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 5 

the Hebrew tongue is like the temple of Solomon 
— a wonder of the world. It is half hieroglyphic. 
Its letters are a picture gallery. Its emotional 
expressiveness adds infinite charm to its sacred 
literature. It appears in full development in its 
most ancient records, as if it had been crystal- 
lized into imperishable form by the marvels of 
the Exodus and the fires of Sinai. 

There is scarcely a sentence in the entire Old 
Testament which does not furnish a most inter- 
esting word-study to the Hebrew scholar, and yet 
it is rather in their broader aspects that the lit- 
erary beauties of these ancient records chiefly 
appear. We open Genesis, and the narrative of 
creation has the measured tread of a highly fin- 
ished poem, one that might easily have been 
transmitted through many ages by oral tradition 
alone. Snatches of ancient song, like Lantech's 
words, and the controversy between Jacob and 
Laban, breathe and burn with wildest passion. 
Is there a more charming romance in all the 
realm of fiction than the story of Joseph? Can 
there be found models of grandeur and sublimity 
like the narrative of the plagues of Egypt and 
the giving of the law at Horeb? Is there among 
all the pastoral poems of the ancient world an 
idyl equal to the book of Ruth, or a drama of 
such artistic finish as the Song of Solomon? 
The Psalms abound with lyrics more exquisite 
than anything to be found in Greek anthology or 
Indian Vedas. The splendor of Isaiah's diction, 



6 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

as well as the majesty of his thought, entitles him 
to be called the winged psalmist of humanity's 
holiest hopes. And so, take psalmody, prophecy, 
history, government, legislation, politics, and the 
old Hebrew literature furnishes ideals of incom- 
parable excellence, and in lavish profusion. 

Students of English literature are wont to tell 
how much we owe to Pope's "Essay on Man," 
and how many words and phrases in common use 
are due to Shakespeare. The Pilgrim's Progress 
has become the common heritage of the English 
world; Milton's immortal epic sings on with 
majestic swell, and Burns has so entranced the 
heart of Scotland that over his magic verses the 
national spirit ever wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care; 

Time but the impression stronger makes, 
As streams their channels deeper wear. 

But have these or any others eclipsed the He- 
brew bards? In Hebrew literature we truly 
have no Burns, no Shakespeare, no Milton, no 
Homer, no Plato; but O how much that tran- 
scends them all ! Jurisprudence and philosophy, 
profounder and safer than anything dreamed of 
by Solon or by Plato; grandeur and sublimity 
and fiery passion, powerfully depicted without 
the degrading polytheism of Homer. Bunyan's 
best thoughts are borrowed from the Bible, and 
the warp and woof of Milton's "great argument" 
were gathered from the Hebrew revelation. 
Shakespeare and Burns, in their happiest strains, 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 7 

speak to the popular heart; but with all their 
wealth of sententious phrases they have not 
equaled the Proverbs of Solomon. Their works 
abound with too large a proportion of what is 
coarse and low ; and in all their nobler efforts at 
the tender, the pure, and the holy they can pro- 
duce no lay or sonnet that will live and sing in 
the souls of men like the twenty-third psalm, 
that deathless nightingale of lyric song. 

Historical Value 

But the literary beauties of the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures are perhaps their least important quality. 
These Scriptures are a vast mine of archaeological 
and historical wealth. The Pentateuch and the 
prophetical books embody more solid informa- 
tion concerning the origin and history of the 
great nations of antiquity than any other monu- 
ment of the past. 

Sir Henry Rawlinson affirms his belief that 
the genealogy of Noah's descendants in the tenth 
chapter of Genesis "is probably of the very remot- 
est antiquity and is undoubtedly the most authen- 
tic record we possess for the affiliation of those 
branches of the human race which sprung from 
the triple stock of the Noachidse." (Rawlinson, 
Historical Evidences, p. 280.) Another learned 
ethnologist declares it to be "one of the oldest 
documents in the world, written in an age when 
as yet historical science had not begun to be," 
and he adds : "It maps out the existing families 



8 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

of mankind and the localities they occupied so 
minutely and accurately that the very latest in- 
vestigations of modern science, with all the helps 
which have accumulated through thousands of 
years, serve only to verify and illustrate it." 
(Burgess, Antiquity and Unity of Human Race, 
p. 152.) The famous inscription of Mesha, king 
of Moab, recovered in 1870 from fragments of a 
small stone beyond the Jordan, is considered a 
great treasure by archaeologists, and worth all 
the money and hazard of life that were required 
to obtain it ; and yet how infinitesimal its value 
as compared with one of the books of Kings! 
The inscription of Darius Hystaspis, chiseled 
into the polished side of a great rock in Media, 
three hundred feet above the ground, has en- 
dured the storms of twenty-four centuries, and 
tells of his Acha3menian genealogy, the provinces 
of his empire, and the triumphs of his arms. He 
devoutly ascribes all his victories to the help of 
Ormazd, his god. The historical value of that 
ancient tablet is beyond question, and no one 
prizes it more than the biblical scholar. And 
yet I venture the assertion that a collection of 
Old Testament references to Assyria, Media, 
Babylon, Persia, Syria, Phenicia, Arabia, and 
Egypt might be inscribed in half the space, and 
at the same time embody much more varied and 
valuable knowledge. 

The deciphering of these ancient inscriptions 
tends to confirm the accuracy of the Scripture 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 9 

history. It had become the fashion of some crit- 
ics to decry the book of Daniel and pronounce 
his historical statements untrustworthy. No 
such character as Belshazzar was known to the 
old Greek writers, and from their records it ap- 
pears that Nabonadius was king of Babylon when 
the Medo-Persian army under Cyrus captured 
that city; that he was not in the city on that 
fatal night, but intrenched in the neighboring 
fortress of Borsippa ; and that he afterward sur- 
rendered himself to Cyrus, and was generously 
treated by that conqueror. These facts long 
troubled biblical apologists : but how interesting 
that an ancient tablet of Nabonadius, exhumed 
from the rubbish in the valley of the Euphrates 
thirty years ago, shows that his eldest son was 
named Belshazzar, and was associated with him 
in the sovereignty of Babylon! Daniel had no 
occasion to mention Nabonadius, but he made an 
imperishable record of the impious feast of Bel- 
shazzar, the actual ruler of the province of Baby- 
lon, who vilely perished on the night the city was 
taken by the Medes and Persians. 

It was once the fashion to disparage the Pen- 
tateuch by alleging that the art of writing was 
unknown in the days of Moses. But all this talk 
is silenced by the concession of the leading 
archaeologists that hieroglyphic inscriptions were 
known in Egypt nearly a thousand years before 
Moses, and that writing with ink upon papyrus 
was common in his day. All recent research 



10 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

shows that the author of the first twenty chapters 
of Exodus must have been very familiar with the 
life and customs of the ancient Egyptians, and 
with the geography and physical phenomena of 
Egypt and of Sinai. The book of Joshua is a 
doomsday book of Palestine, and the minute ac- 
curacy with which it details the ancient bounda- 
ries confirms the belief that it must have been 
compiled by a contemporary of the Israelitish 
conquest of that land. In short, we say that 
philology, ethnology, and geographical and his- 
torical research are every year putting more and 
more beyond question the accuracy and value of 
the ancient Hebrew records. 

A Moral Code 

Passing on to still higher considerations, let 
us for a moment linger to notice the morality of 
the ancient Hebrew legislation. Those command- 
ments of the Decalogue which enjoin the honor- 
ing of father and mother, and prohibit murder, 
adultery, theft, and lying, are grounded in the 
moral intuitions of the race, and are written in 
the hearts of all nations of men ; but nowhere else 
have they such a sublime and impressive enuncia- 
tion as in the books of Moses. Aside from these, 
however, consider the humaneness of that legis- 
lation which, when all surrounding tribes and 
nations trampled down the poor, and subjected 
the masses to nameless outrages for which there 
was no redress, recorded among its statutes such 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 11 

enactments as the following: "Thou shalt not 
oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, 
whether he be of thy brethren or of thy strangers 
that are in thy land. At his day shalt thou give 
him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon 
it ; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it" 
(Deut. 24. 14, 15). "The poor shall never cease 
out of the land : therefore I command thee, say- 
ing, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy 
brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy 
land" (Deut. 15. 11). 

The true Israelite was required to guard the 
morals of his neighbor and love him as himself. 
He must not yield to feelings of vengeance, nor 
cherish bitterness to any of his brethren (Lev. 
19. 17, 18). He must not even allow his neigh- 
bor's ox or sheep to go astray, but seek to restore 
it to him as if it were his own (Deut. 22. 1-3). 
Even in taking the young birds for any proper 
purpose, he must, in kindness and consideration, 
spare the mother-bird (Deut. 22. 6). When 
slavery in its worst possible forms was an insti- 
tution common to all the nations, the Hebrew 
law prohibited one from holding his brother an 
involuntary slave. When one sold himself for 
debt the seventh year must set him free. And 
while the Israelites might buy slaves of the 
heathen round about them, they were forbidden 
to oppress them, and if a servant was maltreated 
so as to lose a tooth or an eye, he was to be set 
at liberty. Twenty-five years ago the slave code 



12 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

of Christian America required all possible effort 
to discover and return to hopeless bondage the 
fugitive slave who had escaped the merciless 
lash of the Southern planter and the teeth of the 
furious bloodhound. But twenty-five centuries 
ago it was written in the national constitution 
of Israel : "Thou shalt not deliver unto his mas- 
ter the servant which has escaped from his mas- 
ter unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, in that 
place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, 
where it liketh him best. Thou shalt not oppress 
him" (Deut. 23. 15, 16). Amazingly uninformed 
and shallow is that criticism which avers that 
the ancient Mosaic legislation was barbarous and 
bloody. Ancient jurisprudence made the nearest 
of kin the blood-avenger of a murdered man, and 
on like principles required an eye for an eye and 
a tooth for a tooth. Modern civilization puts 
the execution of penalty into the hands of duly 
authorized ministers of judgment. And when 
our Lord forbade the resentment of personal as- 
sault, and said, "Forgive your enemies," he never 
intended that offenders guilty of criminal assault 
and battery ought not to be punished at the hands 
of the civil magistrate. Paul the apostle saw no 
such discrepancy as some have seemed to find 
between the laws of Moses and the Sermon on 
the Mount, Quoting from Deuteronomy the say- 
ing, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the 
Lord," he proceeds to show that the civil "powers 
that be are ordained of God" for the very purpose 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 13 

of executing his wrath upon the evildoer (Rom. 
12. 19 to 13. 6). 

We look upon the Mosaic legislation as a moral 
wonder. Captious critics, incompetent to grasp 
the scope and grandeur of this ancient lawbook, 
may cavil at some of its enactments, and forget 
that Moses had to do with a nation of emanci- 
pated serfs; but the philosophical historian will 
see in the author of that remarkable moral code 
a greater than Confucius, a wiser than the half- 
mythical Lycurgus, a profounder than Justinian. 

A Divine Revelation 

But, after all we may say in praise of these 
ancient records, considered as literary treasures, 
and as invaluable for the study of ethnology, 
archaeology, history, and morals, their greater 
and everlasting worth is for doctrine, for reproof, 
for correction, and discipline in righteousness. 
The Holy Scriptures are the great religious text- 
book of the world, and the Old Testament, as we 
have seen, embodies the substance of all that 
Jesus taught. We do not admit the notion of a 
great gulf between the two Testaments, but de- 
clare the two to be in substance one and insep- 
arable — the New essential to understand the Old, 
and the Old essential to understand the New. 
"God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers 
in the prophets by divers portions and in divers 
manners, hath at the end of these days spoken 
unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of 



14 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

all things, through whom also he made the 
worlds" (Heb. 1. 1, 2). There is no real dis- 
crepancy between what was spoken of old time 
and in the latter days. The whole Scripture is 
one self-interpreting, self -consistent, divine reve- 
lation. 

The human mind is ever asking: "What am 
I, whence came I, and whither am I bound? 
What means this wondrous world I see? Has 
it existed always, or had it a beginning, and is 
there an omnipotent Creator and intelligent 
Ruler of nature and her visible forms? Can man 
know God, or will God dwell with man, and make 
known to him his nature and his will?" What 
says the Hebrew revelation in answer to these 
inquiries? 

As to man's origin, no fact is enunciated with 
greater clearness in these Scriptures than that he 
was originally created in the image of God. He 
was the crowning work of God's creation, and 
introduced in regular order after a succession 
of various forms of vegetable and animal life had 
been brought into being by the same creative 
hand. To the old question of the origin of evil 
in our world, this revelation shows us very 
clearly that it started with the abuse of personal 
freedom, the willful disobedience of one divinely 
gifted with a responsible moral nature. To that 
original transgression the Scriptures trace the 
depravity of the entire race. Whatever its origin 
or cause, the fearful fact of man's depravity is 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 15 

witnessed by the moral sense of the whole world. 
But man in his ruined nature shows that he is 
fearfully and wonderfully made. Do broken col- 
umns and fragments of beautiful entablature 
evince the magnificence and splendor of ancient 
Athens and Tyre? So too may we infer the orig- 
inal power and excellence of man from the pres- 
ent condition of his faculties; for mighty intel- 
lects perverted, soul-passions desperate, bodies 
ruined by self-indulgence and vicious appetites, 
point on the one hand to a supernatural origin, 
and on the other to unspeakable possibilities of 
being. 

If, now, we carry this inquiry beyond our- 
selves, and ask, Who made the world, and whence 
came matter, life, and mind? the Hebrew revela- 
tion supplies the only answer that is sufficient 
to meet the conditions of the problem. It reveals 
the great First Cause, a personal God who lives 
and reigns back of all phenomena, and is abso- 
lutely competent to originate and govern all 
things. We are not of the number of those who 
fear the results of scientific research. To us it 
seems preposterous to imagine that any real dis- 
covery as to the nature and action of matter and 
its forces will tend to eliminate God from the 
universe. Nay, rather, such discoveries will en- 
able us to know God better. Let not overhasty 
defenders of the faith cry out against the nebular 
hypothesis. Let them, rather, ask : Why might 
not the omnipotent Creator have originated the 



16 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

universe in that way as well as any other? Does 
it militate against the doctrine of man's super- 
natural origin to know that the species now prop- 
agate themselves? To our thinking, that wisdom 
is far more profound and that power far more 
wonderful which creates a world teeming with 
living forms, all self-productive and all under 
law, than that which must needs keep interfering 
abnormally with each new evolution. 

But, passing to deeper mysteries, we ask : Who 
is God? What is his nature and character? The 
New Testament has answered in that beautiful 
statement, "God is love." It also assures us that 
he is a "consuming fire." But these revelations 
of the character of God are identical with that 
which was shown to Moses in the mount. For it 
is written: "The Lord descended in the cloud, 
and stood with him there, and proclaimed: The 
Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long- 
suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, 
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity 
and transgression, and sin, and that will by no 
means clear the guilty." (Exod. 34. 5-7.) Here is 
the doctrine of an intensely personal God — no 
vague, pantheistic hypothesis. I am persuaded 
that no conception of God ever apprehended by 
the human mind can surpass that which is given 
in the Hebrew Scriptures. Almighty, all-wise, 
infinite in holiness, perfect in righteousness and 
truth, and unspeakably merciful and gracious. 
Pitiable is that criticism which finds fault with 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 17 

Old Testament anthropomorphism and anthro- 
popathism. How is it possible, how was it ever 
possible, for God to reveal himself to man except 
by condescending to the plane of human thoughts 
and feelings? And when, in the fullness of time, 
God made his final revelation, he took the form 
of a servant, and became incarnate in the person 
of Him who hungered, and thirsted, and wept, 
and was in all points tempted as we are, but who 
was nevertheless the effulgence of God's glory, 
and the very image of his substance (Heb. 1. 3). 

It is common to hear of God's severity and 
wrath, as exhibited in the Old Testament. But 
let us not forget that nowhere in all the range 
of human thought are to be found more tender 
and touching portraitures of the love of God. 
The high and holy One, who inhabiteth eternity, 
is Father, Shepherd, Husband, Friend, Re- 
deemer, Saviour — a sun and a shield, fountain 
of life, and light, and joy, and hope, and truth. 

Nor let it be vainly imagined that in the New 
Testament alone the doctrine of redemption 
shines. The Lord Jesus set forth no truth more 
explicitly than that the Hebrew Scriptures re- 
veal his own great work. At what time did the 
hearts of favored disciples burn more intensely 
than when their risen Lord, a beginning at Moses 
and all the prophets, expounded unto them in 
all the Scriptures the things concerning him- 
self? How earnestly did he insist "that all 
things must be fulfilled, which were written in 



18 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the 
psalms concerning him" ! (Luke 24. 44.) 

Christ not in the Old Testament! What per- 
versity to affirm that ! He was promised before 
Adam left paradise: the promise was renewed 
to Noah, assured to Abraham, and confirmed in 
Israel. When Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness he typified the saving power of Jesus. 
The same blessed doctrine spoke from altars and 
lavers, and blood of lambs and goats. It was 
most impressive in the Holy of holies, where 
cherubic wings, extending over the ark of the 
covenant, witnessed the symbols of mercy cover- 
ing wrath. Moses pointed Israel to another 
Prophet greater than himself, and even Ba- 
laam's vision caught the radiance of the star 
of Bethlehem. Time would fail me to show how 
the Psalms of David kindle with Messianic in- 
spiration; how Joel and Amos, and Hosea and 
Micah, Isaiah and Daniel foretell the coming and 
kingdom of the Christ of God. Ezekiel, Zecha- 
riah, Haggai, and Malachi sing in sublimest 
strains of gospel triumph, and furnish the im- 
agery by which the seer of Patmos was enabled 
to portray Jerusalem the golden. 

Surely, he must be very blind who does not 
observe that the Old Testament is full of lessons 
touching atonement, pardon, remission of sin, 
reconciliation, and sanctification. Jehovah talked 
familiarly with Moses, and penitential psalms, 
confessions of guilt, prayers for Divine help and 



THE HEBEEW BEVELATION 19 

songs of praise, scattered profusely through these 
ancient Scriptures, show that the Old Testament 
saints were profoundly experienced in the things 
of God. Paul cites one fact in Abraham's life to 
prove that a man is justified by faith, and James 
cites another to prove that a man is justified by 
works, and not by faith only. O the depth of the 
riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, 
as revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures ! 

Some writers have ventured to affirm that the 
Old Testament is silent on the doctrine of immor- 
tality. But in the New Testament it is expressly 
written that the ancient worthies looked for a 
heavenly country and "a city which hath founda- 
tions, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 
11. 10). Certainly, the ministry of angels must 
have convinced the patriarchs of a heavenly 
world beyond them. The translation of Enoch 
and Elijah proclaimed man all immortal. And 
how meaningless must have been the solemn cer- 
emonials of the sanctuary, the sprinkled blood, 
the golden altar of incense, and the thought of 
Jehovah throned between the cherubim, except 
as resting on the doctrine of a heavenly and im- 
mortal life, to which the symbols pointed! 
"Thou wilt show me the path of life," says the 
psalmist. "In thy presence is fullness of joy : 
at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore" 
(Psa. 16. 11). 

I am to-day addressing young men whose 
future life work will be the preaching of the 



20 BACCALAUEEATE SEKMONS 

gospel. 1 Your highest ambition should be to 
become able ministers of the New Testament; 
but let me admonish you that you cannot attain 
the highest ideal if you neglect the Hebrew reve- 
lation. You will study to show yourselves ap- 
proved unto God, workmen needing not to be 
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 
Tim. 2. 15.) But remember that Timothy, to 
whom these words were spoken, was commended 
because from childhood he had known the Holy 
Scriptures of the Old Testament, "which," says 
the apostle, "are able to make thee wise unto sal- 
vation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" 
(2 Tim. 3. 15). Let me ask: Is there any high 
and inspiring thought connected with your great 
life work which may not be enhanced by some- 
thing in these ancient oracles of God? You take 
the Lord Jesus as the noblest possible Master 
and model. Do not forget that when he entered 
the synagogue of Nazareth, and stood up to read, 
he opened the book of Isaiah, and read therefrom 
a passage which has no superior in delineating 
the office and work of the Christian minister: 
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 
hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the 
poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, 
to preach deliverance to the captives and recov- 
ering of sight to the blind" (Luke 4. 18). When 
you go to minister at the bedside of a d}ing saint 



iThis address was delivered in place of the baccalaureate sermon for the 
year. 



THE HEBEEW KEVELATION 21 

you cannot speak a word of comfort more assur- 
ing than another utterance in the same great 
prophet: "When thou passest through the 
waters I will be with thee ; and through the riv- 
ers, they shall not overflow thee. . . . Fear thou 
not, for I am with thee : be not dismayed ; for I 
am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will 
uphold thee with the right hand of my righteous- 
ness" (Isa. 43. 2; 41. 10). In hours of tempta- 
tion and exposure how helpful too to remember 
that Jesus triumphed over Satan by his potent 
use of what was written in the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures. 

Brethren, you cannot succeed in your great 
mission except, like the disciples of old, you first 
receive "the promise of the Father," the gift and 
power of the Holy Spirit, But remember, when 
the first disciples received that heavenly gift, and 
went forth in the streets of Jerusalem to pro- 
claim the words of life, Peter stood up and 
declared it was a fulfillment of what was spoken 
by the prophet Joel. Nor will that glorious 
prophecy be fully brought to pass until the whole 
Church, ministers and people alike, realize the 
answer of Moses's prayer : "Would God that all 
the Lord's people were prophets, and that the 
Lord would put his Spirit upon them!" (Num. 
11. 29.) 

Many a sanctified disciple now sings of a "land 
of Beulah." Whence came the word and thought 
but from Isaiah's pictured page? And in that 



22 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

blessed land of Beulah, that garden of holiness, 

finds the consecrated Christian any holier joy, 

or greener pastures, or waters of more ennobling 

rest, than did the shepherd minstrel when he 

found his head anointed with oil and his cup 

running over? So Christian psalmody is ever 

enriching itself by appropriating Old Testament 

imagery. It was thought beautiful for Watts to 

sing, 

Could we but climb where Moses stood, 

And view the landscape o'er, 
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood, 
Should fright us from the shore. 

But Charles Wesley seems to have climbed up 
there, for he sang, 

The promised land, from Pisgah's top, 
I now exult to see. 

And yet we hear the notes of even a loftier flight : 

My soul mounted higher, 
In a chariot of fire, 

Nor envied Elijah his seat! 

Surely we may not expect, in the highest at- 
tainments of grace, to pass beyond what is richly 
imaged in the old Hebrew revelations. Burns 
may sweetly sing of his Mary in heaven, and 
Dante's vision glorify the saintly Beatrice, but 
nothing will live in the world's heart, as a hope 
of heavenly reunion, like David's short word 
over his dead child : "I shall go to him." 

So I beseech you, brethren, study to make full 
proof of your ministry by a thorough mastery 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 23 

of the written Word of God. Preach that Word. 
Have the faith of Abraham, the purity and ten- 
derness of Joseph, and become princes of God 
like Jacob at Peniel. O thou man of God, going 
forth to preach the blessed gospel of his Son, 
wouldst thou make the hearts of men burn within 
them when they listen to thy teachings? Re- 
member and imitate the example of the risen 
Christ, when, beginning at Moses, and passing 
on through the prophets, he expounded "in all 
the scriptures the things concerning himself ' 
(Luke 24. 27). That sermon of Jesus is not 
written in the Gospels. It was not preserved like 
the Sermon on the Mount. But with Moses and 
all the prophets in your hands do you go forth 
and reproduce that mighty sermon. 

I beseech you, further, be fearless ministers of 
God. When the forces of the world, the flesh, 
and the devil confront you, remember what was 
said of old to Joshua : "Be strong and of good 
courage ; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed : 
for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever 
thou goest" (Josh. 1. 9) . Let not your souls long- 
after the riches and honors of the world. Covet 
not, like Achan, the golden wedge and the goodly 
Babylonish garment. Covet, rather, the mantle 
of Elijah. 

Homer has given a memorable description of 
the shield of Achilles, wrought and tempered by 
the god of fire. Vergil studied to surpass him in 
his picture of ^Eneas' shield, on which the same 



24 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

deity engraved the most celebrated events of 
Roman history. Tasso could not complete his 
mediaeval epic without a similar attempt to sing 
the magnificence of Rinaldo's shield, sculptured 
with the deeds of his illustrious sires. Art stu- 
dents have admired the power of genius displayed 
in these rival efforts of great epic poets. But 
the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, all unconscious 
of imitating epic song, has really surpassed the 
poets in delineating one aspect of "the shield of 
faith." Upon its broad circumference are set the 
names and deeds of Old Testament worthies. 
According to Homer's song, Achilles's eyes 
flashed fire when he beheld his heavenly armor. 
Like inspiration seized iEneas when his goddess 
mother laid down before him his glittering pano- 
ply; and Rinaldo was so transported with the 
names and deeds engraven on his shield that he 
snatched up the glorious arms, and fancied that 
he heard the trumpet calling him to victory. 

Brethren, fellow-soldiers of Christ, think what 
countless legions have for thousands of years 
been fighting the good fight of faith, and have 
kindled into holy enthusiasm as they have seen 
emblazoned on their heavenly shield that "great 
cloud of witnesses," of whom the world was 
not worthy ! O what an immortal throng ! Abel 
and Enoch, and Noah and Abraham, and those 
many others "who through faith subdued king- 
doms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, 
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the vio- 



THE HEBREW REVELATION 25 

lence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of 
weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in 
fight, and turned to flight the armies of the 
aliens/' 

Wherefore, since you also are compassed about 
with that same great cloud of witnesses, and 
remembering too that your warfare is a life and 
death struggle against the powers of evil, gird on 
the whole armor of God. The breastplate of 
righteousness, behind which you may ever stand 
secure, is sprinkled with the Redeemer's blood. 
The sword of the Spirit which you must wield is 
that same old two-edged blade by which our great 
Captain put to flight the prince of darkness. And 
your shield of faith is studded with the brilliant 
constellation of luminaries through whom it 
pleased the Eternal Father to transmit the light 
of the Hebrew Revelation. Who would fail with 
such an armor sent him from the throne of God ! 



II 

THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 

Four and twenty years ago, at the close of my 
first year as a professor in Garrett Biblical Insti- 
tute, I made my inaugural address, which took 
the place of the baccalaureate sermon of that 
year. My department was that of the Hebrew 
Language and Literature, and I chose for my 
theme on that occasion "The Hebrew Revela- 
tion." Some fourteen years ago I was trans- 
ferred, at my own request, to the chair of Chris- 
tian Doctrine, and to-day my theme is "The 
Christian Revelation." My work in the Old 
Testament was a labor of love, but it begat in me 
a desire to put the strength of my riper years 
into an exposition of the New Testament revela- 
tion of our Lord. In my inaugural I magnified 
the literary treasures of the Old Testament; I 
pointed out its great historical value, and its 
unique revelation of the mysteries of God. To- 
day I would not change those former utterances, 
except, perhaps, in a few incidental statements 
of minor import, but would reaffirm them with 
even stronger emphasis. But I have a greater 
theme for this hour. The glory of the old cove- 
nant, with its tables of stone, its vested priests 
and its oracles of prophecy, was destined, like the 

26 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 27 

splendor that shone on Moses's face, to pass away 
before the superior light and liberty of the sons 
of God, who behold his glory in the face of Jesus 
Christ. 

I. The Christian Revelation is the Fulfill- 
ment of the Law and the Prophets 

"AH the prophets and the law," said Jesus, 
"prophesied until John the Baptist." No one 
among them all was greater than John, but our 
Lord declared that he who is but little in the 
kingdom of heaven is greater than that greatest 
of all the prophets. "I am not come to destroy 
the law and the prophets/' said Jesus; "I am 
come rather to fulfill them." This word "fulfill" 
has both an active and a passive signification. A 
fulfillment inay be conceived as that which ac- 
tively fills and keeps full, and also as that which 
is or has been filled up. Our Lord fulfilled the 
law and the prophets in both these ways. He 
completed in a fullness of grace and glory many 
a truth which Old Testament writers had but 
dimly outlined. He proved himself greater than 
Moses, greater than Solomon, greater than all 
the prophets. He openly set aside Mosaic laws, 
and he rebuked the spirit of Elijah when it 
showed itself in the disciples who would fain call 
down fire from heaven on those whom they 
deemed enemies. 

In the light of Jesus's teaching much of the 
Old Testament falls into desuetude, and ceases 



28 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

to be a moral standard for the Christian life. 
We now perceive that large portions of the 
Hebrew Scriptures represent a lower stage of 
civilization, and also a preparatory and imper- 
fect cult, adapted to the hardness of the people's 
hearts. However unpleasant the fact, it is simply 
matter of record that "father Abraham" showed 
at times a lack of truth and veracity which was 
rebuked by Pharaoh the Egyptian, and by Abime- 
lech the Philistine. Abraham acknowledged 
Melchizedek to be greater than himself, and 
Moses deferred to the counsels of Jethro the 
Midianite. The polygamy of the patriarchs and 
the divorce laws of Moses sink into moral dark- 
ness before the ethical teaching of Jesus. The 
cruel separation of husbands and wives, as told 
in the last chapter of the book of Ezra, could 
obtain no sanction in any Christian common- 
wealth to-day. We shudder at the slaughter of 
the Jews' enemies as told with an obvious relish 
in the book of Esther, and we cannot admire the 
womanly feelings of Queen Esther when she re- 
quests her lord to continue the massacre for 
another day. The barbarous cutting oft of the 
thumbs and toes of Adoni-bezek, and the "hewing 
of Agag in pieces before the Lord" call for no 
apology from us in these days other than we 
should offer for similar atrocities among the 
ancient Moabites or the American Indians. The 
vindictive psalms are abhorrent to the Christian 
spirit, but they are in good keeping along with 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 29 

the law of "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, foot for 
foot." 

It is no defect, but, rather, a merit of the 
Hebrew Scriptures that they so faithfully report 
to us the laws and the spirit of their times. The 
truthful record enables us to point out the de- 
fective elements of the ancient moral and reli- 
gious cults. We should not allow the spots on 
the sun of Old Testament revelation to hide its 
perpetual warmth and worth. These ancient 
writings are still "profitable for teaching, for 
reproof, for correction, and instruction in right- 
eousness." Rut they must be searched in the 
light of the fuller revelations of God in Christ. 
And it is noteworthy that our Lord has given us 
no set of rules by which we may go through the 
Hebrew Scriptures and mark off the texts which 
have been fulfilled and those which are yet bind- 
ing. His revelations are above such a bondage 
of the letter. Every jot and tittle seem rather 
to have been exalted and fused into the new life 
of his blessed gospel. He would not patch the 
new cloth upon an old garment. He says, rather, 
"Rehold, I make all things new." In the fullness 
of his superior revelation every disciple, who is 
well instructed in the mysteries of the kingdom 
of heaven, perceives that not Moses only, but also 
Samuel and David and Daniel and Jonah wrote 
of the Christ who was to come. For, as Paul 
argues, "if the ministration engraven on stones 
came with glory, how shall not rather the minis- 



30 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

tration of the Spirit be with glory, the glory that 
surpasseth, transforming the beholder into the 
same heavenly image, from glory to glory?" 

II. The Christian Revelation is also a Ful- 
fillment OF ALL THE OTHER RELIGIOUS 

Cults of Mankind 

More than sixty years ago Richard Chenevix 
Trench delivered his famous Hulsean lectures, 
entitled, "Christ the Desire of all Nations; or, 
the Unconscious Prophecies of Heathendom." 
He pointed out the ideas of incarnation and of 
revelation found in many a heathen practice; he 
noticed the widespread yearning for some great 
teacher sent from God ; also the almost universal 
custom of offering sacrifices for the purpose of 
getting on good terms with God. During the last 
fifty years this comparative study of the reli- 
gions of mankind has become a science, and has 
quite revolutionized some former notions of the 
origin and growth of religion. The Jewish 
scribes seemed to think that because they had 
Abraham for their father they had a monopoly of 
the grace of God, and they looked with cold con- 
tempt upon the outside world. Their sacred 
books were hedged about with vain traditions, 
and treated with an almost fetish worship. They 
lost the vision of their ancient seers who spoke 
of a coming Prince of Peace in whom all nations 
should be blessed. This leaven of Jewish nar- 
rowness worked over into the Christian Church, 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 31 

and some of the apostles even took offense when 
they first heard of a mission to the Gentiles. 
This old leaven of the Pharisees is working in 
certain parts of Christendom even to this day, 
so that some would stoutly deny the proposition 
that Christianity can be in any sense the fulfill- 
ment of any heathen cult. They are slow to 
believe, what Paul so deeply learned, that God 
left not himself without witness among the na- 
tions, but has, since the creation of the world, 
been revealing his eternal power and divinity to 
all men. Though the Gentiles have not Moses 
and the prophets, Paul declares that they "show 
the work of the law written in their hearts." 
The recent discovery of the Code of Hammurabi 
shows that most of the Ten Commandments and 
many other laws of the Pentateuch were in force 
in Babylon a thousand years before the days of 
Moses. Other ancient lawgivers — as Manu of 
India, and Minos of Crete, and Lycurgus, and 
Solon, and Numa Pompilius — also claimed to 
have received their laws from the God of light 
and wisdom. Even the low-minded fetish- wor- 
shiper is feeling after God, if haply he may find 
him in any visible object that has stirred within 
him a sense of the supernatural. The totem-pole 
is as sacred to its clan as was the ark of Jehovah 
to the ancient Hebrew. Wherever rational 
human life has appeared on earth there also the 
religious feeling has appeared, and that feeling 
is a yearning after a fuller revelation of God. 



32 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

If, now, we believe that God works anywhere in 
human life and history, we should also behold 
him everywhere, and through all time. It is most 
interesting to study the progress of religious 
ideas traceable among the peoples who have left 
us their ancient literatures. We observe a prog- 
ress of doctrine in the successive books of the 
Old Testament. The notions of God prevalent 
in the times of the judges of Israel are super- 
seded by the lofty monotheism of Amos. Jere- 
miah and Ezekiel admonish the people of their 
time that they should no longer use the proverb 
once in vogue, "The fathers have eaten sour 
grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." 
Similar progress in doctrine appears in other 
cults. Max Mtiller, years ago, called attention 
to the remarkable advance in religious ideas 
traceable in the successive periods of the vast 
literature of Brahmanism, from the time of the 
oldest Vedic hymns down to the modern systems 
of Hindu philosophy. Still more striking is the 
evolution of religious thought among the Greeks. 
According to Homer (Odyssey, 3. 48), "all men 
are yearning after gods." His deities are an in- 
numerable company, and they are all made in 
the likeness of men. They quarrel, and deceive 
each other, and the father of gods and of men 
sends delusive dreams to mislead men. But some 
centuries later we discover in the odes of Pindar 
an effort to purify the old theology of Homer. 
Later still the great tragedians exhibit a more 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 33 

marked advance in their allusions to the gods, 
and Euripides even questions the existence of 
such deities as Homer sang. The later Greek 
philosophers set at naught the polytheism of the 
poets. In the tenth book of Plato's Republic we 
read : "There is an ancient quarrel between phil- 
osophy and poetry. Poetry, being such as she 
is, must not be pursued in earnest, or regarded 
seriously, as attaining to the truth." These 
words are very significant and suggestive. The 
gods of Homer's poems, jealous, deceitful, plot- 
ting mischief to mankind, could have no 
authority over Plato's reason. He could not 
accept the traditional theology which extolled 
the ancient myths of gods and goddesses and 
insisted on their historicity. Socrates, the noblest 
of the Greeks, was put to death because he did 
not seem to respect the gods of Athens as the 
city respected them. Like a later prophet and 
apostle he seemed to the men of Athens "to be 
a setter forth of strange gods." The plain fact 
was that he had broken with the old polytheism 
of the poets. His philosophy inquired after 
reality, and would not accept the fictions of 
poetry as a substitute for facts. He did not at- 
tain unto clear revelations of God, nor did Plato ; 
but who put it in Plato's mind to write such 
words as these? "The Creator of the world 
generated and created this universe. He was 
good, and no goodness can ever have jealousy. 
He desired that all things should be like himself 



34 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

as possible. He put intelligence in soul, and soul 
in body, and he framed the universe to be the 
best and fairest work in the order of nature. 
And therefore, using the language of probability, 
we may say that the world became a living soul, 
and truly rational through the providence of 
God" (Tinueus SO). 

Those noble spirits among the Gentiles who 
thus felt after God were not very far from the 
kingdom of heaven. God was as truly, if not as 
clearly, in them as he was in Samuel and in 
Jeremiah. The truth they grasped was part and 
parcel of that "true Light, which lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world." The Greeks 
advanced beyond many other races, and the 
Jewish people were favored above all in that 
theirs were "the adoption, and the glory, and 
the covenants, and the giving of the law, and 
the promises." But Jew and Gentile alike 
needed a fuller revelation of God; and in the 
fullness of time Israel was cast off and scat- 
tered abroad, and the Christian revelation is now 
offered to all the nations. 

III. The Christian Revelation Surpasses 
All that Is Noblest in Other Religions, 
and Offers the Best Claims to Be- 
come the Ultimate Universal 
Religion of Mankind 

We confidently utter this proposition with our 
eyes open to the fact that "historical Christi- 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 35 

anity" has its deplorable records of lordly 
ehurchisra, and priestly corruption, and Spanish 
Inquisition, and Protestant bigotry, and both 
Romish and Protestant conflict with scientific 
research, and a dread of liberty of thought. Some 
of the famous Christian theologians have pro- 
pounded horrible dogmas that Jesus would have 
spurned. We cannot ignore the offenses that 
have accompanied the outgoings of Christianity 
in the world. They must needs have come, and 
they have their explanation in the frailty and 
fallibility of man. Corresponding offenses have 
also appeared in connection with every other 
cult. But we claim and insist that every form 
of religion is entitled to be judged by ichat is 
highest and best in its fundamental teaching. 
We should study all religions with a sympathetic 
feeling, for we may see in every one of them 
the noblest elements of human nature yearning 
after God. Thoughtful men are now asking: 
"What is religion? What is the essence of Chris- 
tianity ?" And we are told that, in the deepest 
sense, religion is the recognition of a divine re- 
lation between God and man. This being true, 
then that religion which best exhibits the facts 
and the significance of such relationship should 
have the highest claims upon us all. Accord- 
ingly, we ask of Christianity and its preachers, 
as we would of any other cult, what is the best 
you can tell us about man and about God? 
1. First of all, let us examine what the Chris- 



36 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

tian Revelation has to tell us about man's dutiful 
relations to his fellow man. We will appreciate 
the teaching of Jesus on this subject the better 
by duly studying what other great teachers 
have had to say. We do not disparage the light 
given, to such masters as Confucius and Laotse 
and Socrates by holding the opinion that Jesus 
Christ was far in advance of them all. We de- 
voutly thank God for whatever light and truth 
he gave those ancient masters. Confucius ex- 
pressed the Golden Rule on this wise : "What you 
do not want done to yourself, do not do unto 
others." Socrates put it this way: "Let no one 
touch what is mine, nor disturb the least thing 
which belongs to me without my consent; and 
may I, being of well-disposed mind, act in the 
same manner in regard to the things of others" 
(Laws, 913). Socrates also condemned the law 
of retaliation, and said, "It is wrong to render 
evil for evil to anyone, whatever we may have 
suffered from him" (Crito, 49). And Laotse, 
the old Chinese philosopher, contemporary with 
Confucius, anticipated both Socrates and Jesus 
with the noble precept, "Return good for evil." 
But Confucius would not accept this teaching 
of Laotse. No, no; he said, "Return good for 
good, but recompense injury with justice." All 
these sayings may, in their way, be called "holy, 
and just, and good," as Paul said of the law. 
They were written on the hearts of those great 
Gentiles by the finger of God. Jesus' superiority 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 37 

appears not only in his giving distinctive and 
positive expression to these golden maxims, but 
also in his declaring their fundamental char- 
acter. Observe his manner of statement: "All 
things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
unto you, even do ye also unto them." When 
asked to name the great commandment, he first 
cited from Deuteronomy — "Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart," and called this 
"the first and great commandment," Then he 
immediately cited from Leviticus — "Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself," and declared that 
on these two commandments the entire law and 
the prophets hang. When, now, we turn to this 
law as it is written in Leviticus, we observe that 
it there stands in connection with these words: 
"Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart; 
thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any 
grudge against the children of thy people." With 
the Jew this commandment had no application 
to his conduct with the heathen round about 
him. No Gentile was his brother or his neighbor. 
Jesus exposed the defects of the old law by show- 
ing that its current meaning with the Jew was, 
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine 
enemy." Then, rising far above such narrow con- 
cepts, he proclaimed : "I say unto you. Love your 
enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; 
that ye may be sons of your Father in heaven: 
for he gives sunshine and rain to the evil and 
the good, to the just and the unjust." When 



38 BACCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

the lawyer asked hini, "Who is my neighbor?" 
he uttered the parable of the good Samaritan. 
It is a touching tribute to the humanity of Jesus 
that the Samaritan priests at Shechem to this 
day speak with affection of the fact that Jesus 
himself was once called a Samaritan by his 
Jewish enemies, and that he gave as an illustra- 
tion of neighborly love the example of the good 
Samaritan. 

But our wonder deepens when we hear this 
Man of Nazareth proclaim : "Whosoever shall do 
the will of God, the same is my brother, and 
sister, and mother." In the synagogue he reads 
Isaiah's language as his own : "The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to 
preach good tidings to the poor, liberty to the 
captives, and recovery of sight to the blind." He 
takes up the little children in his arms, and 
blesses them, and says, "Of such is the kingdom 
of heaven." He weeps beside the grave of 
Lazarus. He loves the mountains and the fields 
and the grass and the lilies and the birds. The 
plowman and the sower and the shepherd are 
his familiars. His sermons on the mount, and 
in the plain, and in the upper room surpass the 
oracles of Sinai. What a heavenly decalogue 
are his beatitudes! W T hat heavenly ethics in a 
command like this ! — "If thy brother sin against 
'thee, go, show him his fault between thee and 
him alone ; if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy 
brother." What hundreds of wretched quarrels 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 39 

and lawsuits might be avoided by observing this 
Christly rule! But the current spiteful ethics 
of the worldling says, "No, no; that man first 
sinned against me, and when he comes and asks 
my pardon, it will be time enough for me to 
forgive him." Peter evidently thought himself 
very charitable when he asked the Master, "Shall 
I forgive my offending brother seven times?" 



l » 



But the Lord answered, "Nay, rather until 
seventy times seven." 

Our wonder still deepens when we further ob- 
serve how even the Ten Commandments are ex- 
alted into a higher significance by the teachings 
of Jesus. The young ruler, who said he had 
kept all these commandments from his childhood, 
went away sorrowful on finding that the very 
first commandment meant for him more than he 
was ready to obey. The blind Pharisee, who 
esteemed above temple and altar the gold of the 
temple and the gift on the altar, was seen to 
be worse than one who makes unto himself a 
graven image. The third commandment is 
superseded by "Swear not at all." How wither- 
ing the rebuke which exposed the Pharisaic dis- 
honor of father and mother by withholding their 
dues in order to offer pretentious gifts to God! 
And "every one who is angry with his brother" 
is shown to be a murderer like Cain. The crime 
of adultery may be committed by the lustful 
look, and theft and falsehood may work their 
foul pollution in the soul of man without the 



40 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

overt act; for "out of the heart of man proceed 
evil thoughts, murders, thefts, false witness, and 
railings." And so at the touch of Jesus every 
one of the old commandments flames with a new 
light and power. Every jot and tittle is filled 
up with a deeper meaning. Nothing is left ex- 
actly as it Avas, but every precept takes on a 
higher type of law — "the law of the spirit of life 
in Christ Jesus." 

There was a time, at a great crisis in our 
nation, when perhaps half the people in the 
United States jeered at William H. Seward's 
solemn appeal to "a higher law." Perhaps the 
same proportion would to-day treat with like 
disdain our Lord's teaching on the question of 
divorce. "Is it ever lawful," they asked him, 
"for a man to put away his wife?" No, never, 
was his answer; an answer w T hich has been mis- 
chievously perverted by the Judaizing interpo- 
lation in Matthew's Gospel of the clause — 
"except for the cause of adultery." If Jesus had 
uttered that notorious exception, it is inex- 
plicable why both Mark and Luke should have 
failed to report it. Matthew's Gospel betrays 
also other marks of early Jewish- Christian 
interpolation, which bear witness to the fact that 
some of the early disciples could not accept all 
the teachings of Jesus, but were wont to say of 
some of them, "This is a hard saying; who can 
hear it?" They were offended at the statement 
of Jesus that the law of Moses on the subject 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 41 

of divorce was only an easy-going regulation, 
adjusted to the hardness of the people's hearts. 
Heaven's first law of man and wife, he told them, 
was that of monogamy, and what God has thus 
joined together no man should presume to put 
asunder. Listen now to Jesus's higher law: 
"Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry 
another, committeth adultery against her: and 
if she herself shall put away her husband, and 
marry another, she committeth adultery" (Mark 
10. 11, 12). Here, in this oldest Gospel, no ex- 
ception is made or suggested for any cause what- 
ever. The same is true of the parallel passage 
in Luke. 

Ah! I hear one saying: "That is too high a 
law for man. Such total prohibition of divorce 
is impracticable in the civilized world to-day." 
Yes, yes, no doubt; such is still the lamentable 
hardness of human hearts, and the lusts of the 
flesh are so mighty that our divorce laws flout 
the teachings of Jesus Christ. Superficial senti- 
mentalists cry out: "What, no divorce laws for 
any cause whatever! Think of the miserable 
unions of utterly incompatible natures; would 
you compel such to live together?" No, I think 
Jesus would say, I would not compel them to 
live together. It might be far better for them 
to live apart, until the death of one of them end 
the dire tragedy. But let not either of them 
dare marry again while the other is alive. When 
this higher law of Christ shall obtain due recog- 



42 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

nition in human civilization and in an enlight- 
ened conscience, then — and not till then — will 
hasty, wretched marriages and disgusting divorce 
scandals cease to debauch the public conscience 
and shame the Christian world. 

Let no one imagine that we make void the law 
by this exposition of the teachings of Jesus. 
Rather do we magnify the law, and make it more 
honorable. TVe point out the mind of Christ and 
show the vast superiority of the Christian revela- 
tion. Where, in all the past, has there arisen 
a lawgiver, prophet or teacher fairly comparable 
to this Man of Nazareth? We take no laurel 
from another's brow, but we show, beyond a 
question, that Jesus is supreme. 

2. Observe, next, what the Christian Revela- 
tion has to fell us about God. This is the subject 
of perpetual inquiry, the mystery of all mys- 
teries. It is the question of the life of the world. 
Plato argued that human souls must needs exist 
in some way before the bodies they inhabit, and, 
in like manner, before this visible world came 
into being there must have been the great uni- 
versal Soul of the world. Earlier still than 
Plato, Heraclitus of Ephesus, observing that all 
things are in perpetual motion, maintained that 
all the forms of nature of which we have any 
knowledge are evolutions out of an original, 
eternal fire-mist. All things, he said, are full 
of souls, and no one, by whatever road he may 
travel, can ever find out the boundaries of the 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 43 

soul. I confess a sense of awe in the presence 
of these ancient thinkers. They bear witness to 
the concept of a universal animism. They seem 
not very far from those old Hebrew psalmists 
and prophets who say that God causes the grass 
to grow, and fills the trees with sap, and waters 
the hills with his rain, and makes the clouds 
his chariot, and walks on the wings of the wind. 
They could sometimes hear the sound of his go- 
ing in the tops of the mulberry trees. 

.The modern scientific study of the universe 
serves to intensify these inquiries after the mov- 
ing Soul of the world. Our wise men assure 
us that the sun is more than ninety millions of 
miles distant from this earth, and yet a ray of 
light comes all that way to us in eight minutes 
of time ! I am not a little staggered to compute 
such spaces and such speed. But I am over- 
whelmed when these same wise men point me to 
that glorious constellation of the north, which 
we familiarly call "the Great Dipper," and tell 
me that a ray of light, going at the rate of ninety 
millions of miles in eight minutes, requires six 
years to reach us from those stars! Another 
class of scientists turns our attention to the 
equally astonishing universe of infinitesimals. 
The microscope discloses in one little drop of 
water a population of living creatures more 
numerous than the legal voters of Chicago; and 
if two separate drops are run together, what 
fatal battles follow! Animalcules with long, 



44 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

sharp teeth, and threatening horns, and ugly 
tusks, rush at each other, seeking whom they 
may devour. But in all this telescopic and 
microscopic search no one has yet discovered the 
Soul of the world. What is it? Wherein is the 
hiding of its power? Agnostics have called it 
"the Infinite." But how does that help us? The 
infinite What? we ask. Infinite bulk, or infinite 
littleness? We get no answer in physical heights 
or depths. There is the little Mayflower, or the 
"flower in the crannied wall." If we but knew 
the invisible sources of its inner life, "root and 
all, and all in all," we should better know 
what God is and what man is. 

What has the Christian Revelation to say 
about this mystery of the ages? It surely has 
something to say. What it says is not of the 
nature of a demonstration. It has not convinced 
or won the hearts of some thoughtful men. Per- 
haps, then, I do well to submit it simply as a 
hypothesis. Neither Jesus nor his disciples have 
claimed all knowledge, or ability to resolve all 
mysteries. Suppose, then, for the thoughtful 
doubter, I submit what Jesus has to say about 
the Soul of the world, not as a revelation, but 
as a proposition, a hypothesis. A hypothesis has 
claims on the reason just so far as it may best 
suffice to answer known facts. We present the 
Christian concept of God as the best answer 
ever yet given to the human heart in its quest 
after the Soul of the world. We are bound in 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 45 

&11 honesty of thought to accept it until some one 
;shows us a better theory or hypothesis. 

To me one of the most profound sayings of 
•Jesus is, "My Father worketk hitherto, and I 
work." God, then, is the great eternal Worker, 
and Jesus Christ is like him. It is noteworthy 
that Jesus spoke far more frequently about Ms 
Father than he did about God. He teaches us to 
begin our prayers with "Our Father." He seems 
to delight in such expressions as "my Father and 
your Father" ; "your heavenly Father" ; "tell my 
brethren that I ascend unto my Father and your 
Father, my God and your God." Hear him pray : 
"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth, that thou didst hide these things from the 
wise, and didst reveal them unto babes. . . . No 
one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither 
does any know the Father save the Son, and he 
to whom the Son willeth to reveal him. Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest." In John's Gospel 
these forms of expression are very striking : "He 
that beholdeth me, beholdeth him that sent me" ; 
"I am in the Father, and the Father in me"; 
"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 

What, now, does this kind of revelation tell 
us about God? To me it says: "Do not expect 
the telescope or the microscope to give you the 
real vision of God. Travel not afar in the in- 
finite spaces of the stars, nor search the atoms 
of infinitesimal life to find out God. If there is 



46 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

any great, self-conscious 'Soul of the world/ you 
will probably best find him in the workings of 
the self-conscious human soul. The God, whom 
we adore, is 'the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ.' " Jesus Christ is the supreme 
"Son of his love/' called, in the epistle to the 
Hebrews, "the effulgence of God's glory and the 
very image of his substance." And yet he is 
not ashamed to call us brethren. Hear him call, 
"Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is 
my brother, and sister, and mother." Behold 
here, then, a prophet, a teacher, a Son of man 
and Son of God, sent forth from God to tell us 
that we are his own kith and kin. In him the 
pure in heart see God. Look at his purity, and 
patience, and wisdom, and power over life and 
death, his suffering and sorrow over the sins of 
men, and ye behold the Father also. When he 
weeps at Lazarus's tomb, and when he cries over 
Jerusalem, "How often would I have gathered 
thy children together as a mother-bird gathers 
her brood under her wings," we behold the 
Father also, his Father and our Father, his God 
and our God. The presence and eternal activity 
of such a Soul of the world in the world is the 
best hypothesis we have found to account for 
the facts of the world. To us it has the value 
of an unspeakably precious revelation. 

There are those who seem to think it an im- 
provement on the Lord's Prayer to add to the 
familiar pater nosier a mater nostra, and say, 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 47 

"Our Mother in heaven." If this be in reality 
anything more than a shallow sentimentalism, or 
if it affords any devout worshiper a touch of 
hallowed emotion, we need not be overcritical. 
God who made man in his own image "made 
them male and female" — perhaps implying that 
it requires the qualities capable of both father- 
hood and motherhood to constitute the complete 
image of God. In the same ancient chapter of 
creations we are also told that the Spirit of God 
was brooding like a mother-bird upon the face of 
the primeval waters, and at the Word of God 
the waters swarmed with swarms of living 
things. Those products of creation are also 
called "generations of the heavens and the 
earth." And Jesus assures us that his Father 
keeps on working, and that he works along with 
him. The growths of even the vegetable world 
are male and female, and bear their witness to 
God's paternal and maternal glory. And if a 
refined human affection is wont to think of a 
mother's love as containing some element more 
exquisite in any way than a father's tenderness, 
we only say, "Be of good comfort." The love of 
God surpasses all that we can know of fond 
affection. The love of Jonathan for David "was 
wonderful, passing the love of women"; more 
wonderful must be "the love of Christ which 
passeth knowledge." The word of the Lord 
through one of the prophets cried out long ago: 
Can a woman forget her nursing child? Yes, 



a 



48 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

they may forget, saith Jehovah, yet never will 
I forget thee!" "As one whom his mother com- 
forteth, so will I comfort you." And so, when 
we behold Jesus taking little children in his 
arms, we see the Father also, his Father and 
our Father, whose lovingkindness surpasses all 
that men and women have ever known of holy 
love. For "God is love," and "love is of God." 
His love is enhanced in our thought by what 
Jesus says about the lilies and the birds. "Con- 
sider the lilies, how they grow, without toil; yet 
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
one of these. Behold the birds ; they do not sow, 
nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your 
heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not two 
sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of 
them shall fall on the ground without your 
Father. Nay, the very hairs of your head are 
all numbered. Fear not therefore; ye are of 
more value than many sparrows." Whither must 
such thoughts lead us on? Every sparrow, every 
robin, every linnet is beloved by our heavenly 
Father. The emotion of yonder child over the 
death of the pet canary is not so deep and 
genuine as that of God over the same little 
creature. We can set no bounds to such a 
heavenly sympathy. 

It has become a theological fad in some quar- 
ters to talk about the "immanence of God." Can 
it add anything to this Christly revelation of 
our heavenly Father's presence in every bird and 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 49 

leaf and flower? Our Father worketh continu- 
ally, in all, over all. He leads forth the Pleiades 
as easily as he clothes the grass of the field. His 
universal presence is the real pantheism. He is 
the everlasting Soul of the world, and we call 
him "Our Father who is in the heavens." He 
bringeth forth "the generations of the heavens 
and the earth," and "he worketh hitherto," and 
evermore. 

But if our Father cares for every sparrow, 
how much more must he yearn over the perils 
of every man who is created in his image? His 
passion of righteousness is as mighty as the pas- 
sion of his love, and love is in distress when any 
living soul is in affliction. The sympathetic, 
suffering Son of God reveals an equally sympa- 
thetic heavenly Father. Paul speaks of the whole 
creation as travailing in pain, and waiting in 
earnest expectation some great redemption of 
the sons of God. The eternal Spirit is also mak- 
ing intercession, as one acquainted with grief, 
and undergoing emotion "with groanings that 
cannot be uttered." O mystery of love unspeak- 
able! The eternal Father, the loving Soul of 
the world, must needs feel unspeakable obliga- 
tion to care for his own offspring. If the whole 
creation, or any part of it, groans in pain or in 
sorrow, the Father feels a sympathetic pang. The 
love of Christ and the sufferings of Christ ad- 
monish us how his Father and our Father must 
feel the holiest obligation to do his uttermost to 



50 BACCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

rescue every wandering child. If one go astray, 
and sin against God, and feel the bitter sting of 
death, how is the Father's bosom wrung with a 
Christly agony? Such a Father and such a 
Christ cannot be willing that anyone perish, but 
that every one, and all, be made "partakers of 
the inheritance of the saints in light." But, alas ! 
it is not in the power of love or of suffering to 
compel obedience to the truth. The mystery of 
ages must work its onward course; our Father 
is working in his own wisdom and love, and we 
should study to work in harmony with him. Our 
Christian revelation magnifies the love of God 
and the love of man. Such a God and Father as 
Christ reveals is worthy of our holiest affection. 
No other cult or school of thought presents to 
us such a magnificent concept of God and of 
man, and of such Christly relations between 
them. Kinship with such a Father, and mother, 
and sister, and brother, as we behold in Jesus 
Christ, exalts us into the fellowship of the 
heavenly regions. 

Members of the graduating class: These doc- 
trines of God and man are fundamental to the 
message of salvation which you are to preach 
to your generation. Who can fail with such a 
Father and such a Christ to lead him on? The 
spiritual treasures of this revelation are inex- 
haustible. Have you considered what an inherit- 
ance we have in the mere phrases which express 
the living experiences of our Gospel? What 



THE CHEISTIAN KEVELATION 51 

gems, what pearls of great price, are indicated 
in such familiar household words as these! 
"Forgiveness of sin," "peace with God/ 7 "the 
righteousness of faith," "full assurance of faith," 
"the witness of the Spirit," "joy in the Holy 
Spirit," "the liberty of the sons of God," "the 
beauty of holiness," "your life is hid with Christ 
in God." And along with all these comes the 
assurance of our blessed hope : "Our light afflic- 
tion which is for the moment, worketh for us 
more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of 
glory; while we look not at the things which 
are seen, but at the things which are not seen: 
for the things which are seen are temporal; but 
the things which are not seen are eternal. For 
we know that if the earthly house of our taber- 
nacle be dissolved, we have a house not made with 
hands, eternal, in the heavens." 

These things teach, and exhort, and proclaim 
with all boldness, and with all gentleness. To 
you it is given to behold as in a mirror the glory 
of God, and also to be transformed into the 
same image, from glory to glory. Unto you is 
committed the word of reconciliation, the blessed 
ministry of this Christian Eevelation. 

I charge you, in the sight of God and of Jesus 
Christ, that you give diligence to show your- 
selves approved of God. Handle the Word 
of truth aright. So shall you be partakers both 
of the sufferings of Christ and of the glories 
that are to follow. 



Ill 

THE GREATER MIRACLES 1 

We assemble to-day under a feeling of sore 
bereavement and of irreparable loss. We miss 
a familiar face and a commanding form. The 
very air about us is redolent with the fragrance 
of his honored name. The familiar lines of 
Longfellow, 

Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime, 

come to us as with a new inspiration and en- 
hance in our thought the value of all real psalms 
of life. For years and years to come the name of 
Joseph Cummings will remain in this community 
a familiar household word. I am told that our 
students in their freshman year possessed a kind 
of wholesome fear of Dr. Cummings; in the 
sophomore year they came to trust him as a 
powerful friend; as juniors the friendship grew 
into strong admiration, and as seniors they loved 
him with a deep affection. Wherein may we 
trace the secret of such power? Is it not to be 
found in the essentially miraculous element that 
inheres in a strong personality? Such a man 



1 Preached in the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Evanston, June 15, 
1890. Dr. Joseph Cummings, president of Northwestern University, died 
May 7, and the trustees of the University requested Dr. Terry to preach the 
Baccalaureate Sermon of that year. 

52 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 53 

thinks God's thoughts after him; and is it strange 
that with the burden of such mighty thoughts 
he should also perform many wonderful works? 
Let me invite you to the consideration of a re- 
markable saying of Jesus Christ, which contains 
the subject to which our thoughts may well be 
devoted at this hour, and which I will designate 

The Greater Miracles 

"Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth 
on me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and 
greater works than these shall he do; because 
I go unto the Father" (John 14. 12). 

This statement may well seem to us a very 
extraordinary declaration. We fail to perceive 
when or where any of the disciples of our Lord 
ever did greater or more wonderful works than 
those reported of him. He walked on the storm- 
tossed billows, and calmed the raging sea. He 
opened the eyes of the blind, cleansed the leper 
with a word, and even called the dead back to 
life. And yet he says to his disciples, "Ye shall 
do greater things than these." Some have tried 
to lessen the difficulty by supposing that the 
words indicate a greater number of miracles to 
be wrought by the disciples. But that is not the 
natural meaning of the words of Jesus, nor can 
it be shown that the disciples all together ever 
performed as many miracles as did Jesus him- 
self. We believe that Jesus intended in these 
words to teach that there are greater works than 



54 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

those which affect the realm of matter and of 
physical life. How common it is to overlook the 
fact that he who works a miracle and he for 
whom a miracle is wrought must needs be greater 
than the miracle itself! The world of sense is 
ever pressing on us with such force that we quite 
naturally exalt material above spiritual things. 
To the superficial multitude the opening of the 
eyes of a blind man appears a greater wonder 
than the liberation of a soul from the bondage 
of sin. But if we possess the mind and spirit 
of Jesus, we must learn to exalt the spiritual 
above the material. God is spirit, and man's 
immortal nature is spiritual and survives the 
ruin of his body. "The things which are seen 
are temporal, but the things which are not seen 
are eternal." And the eternal is no less real 
because unseen. These spiritual truths are, of 
course, quite naturally disregarded by a fleshly 
mind. In disregard of our Lord's teaching that 
those who reject Moses and the prophets would 
not believe though one should rise from the dead, 
they keep on crying, "Show us a sign, and we 
will believe." They would crucify the Son of 
God afresh every day if only they could see him 
come down from the cross and confound a scoff- 
ing crowd. They appear to set a higher value 
on one alleged "faith-cure" that has made a local 
sensation than on the whole record of a conse- 
crated life that has made no greater show in the 
world than to visit the fatherless and widows 



THE GKEATEB MIRACLES 55 

in their affliction, and to keep unspotted from 
the world. It has even come to pass that some 
people imagine more may be known of God from 
one "prayer-test" than from all the lessons of 
the Sermon on the Mount. 

Now, in opposition to these mistaken notions, 
and in harmony with the teaching of Jesus, I 
propose to show that there are greater things in 
the world than miracles of sense, and when vain, 
fleshly men ask why miracles have ceased, they 
are to be told that miracles in the realm of flesh 
and blood have been superseded by greater works 
in the realm of spiritual life. I undertake to 
maintain this important truth — 

I. By the Explicit Teachings of the Holy 
Scriptures. 

II. By Illustrations from Human History. 

III. By Appeal to Profoundest Experiences 
of the Individual Soul. 

I. No careful student of the Bible ought to 
require extended argument to convince him that 
miracles in the realm of matter are always 
subservient to spiritual ends. The miracles of 
God are in no sense violations of the divinely 
established order of his world. They were never 
wrought as mere displays of power. And it is 
noteworthy that the miracles of Jesus, so far 
from being things in which he took delight, were, 
rather, a part of his humiliation. He seemed at 
times to feel sad that he was obliged to perform 
a miracle to accomplish the higher purpose of 



56 BACCALAUEEATE SEKMONS 

his ministry. The working of a miracle was with 
him a kind of temporary condescension to human 
weakness in order to prepare the way for some- 
thing better. It was one of the undesirable 
necessities of the times. It is with almost a 
sigh of pity that he says, "Except ye see signs 
and wonders, ye will not believe." "An evil 
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." 
When his disciples came back and boasted that 
devils were subject to them in his name, he said 
unto them, "Kejoice rather that your names are 
written in heaven." With much long-suffering 
he showed his hands and side to Thomas, and 
then added with deep significance the memorable 
words, "Blessed are they that have not seen, 
and yet have believed." For this reason, in part, 
it was expedient that Christ should go away from 
the gaze of fleshly eyes. And hence he says, "Ye 
shall do greater works because I go unto the 
Father." His physical departure was necessary 
to institute the higher dispensation of the Spirit, 
and the wonderful works of redemption, wrought 
by the Spirit in the hearts of men, are of greater 
value in the sight of God than all the prodigies 
that ever moved the world of sense. "Though 
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels," 
says Paul, "and have not love, I am become 
sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And 
though I have all faith, so that I could remove 
mountains, and have not love, I am nothing." 
The purport of all these scriptures is obviously 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 57 

to magnify spiritual things above all the wonders 
of the physical world. Even the ancient proverb 
declares that "He that is slow to anger is better 
than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit 
than he that taketh a city." We are accordingly 
of the opinion that those people who go about 
making a great noise over modern miracles of 
healing the body turn men's thoughts away from 
higher things, and cultivate morbid superstition 
rather than the real faith of Christ. 

No better illustration of the religious worth- 
lessness of external display in the form of a 
prayer-test need be sought than that of the story 
of Elijah's triumph on Mount Carmel. That 
old prophet of Israel bestrides the ancient world 
like a colossus. His first appearance in the 
record is like a flash of lightning from the sky, 
"as if he had dropped out of the chariot, which, 
after his work was done, conveyed him back to 
heaven." He challenged the prophets of Baal, 
four hundred in number, to test by sacrifice and 
prayer whether the true God were Baal or Je- 
hovah. The God who should answer by fire from 
heaven was to be acknowledged as the only true 
God. That was to be a monumental "prayer- 
test" for all time, and serves to show the worth- 
lessness of all such physical manifestations of 
power to advance the cause of righteousness. 

Recall now the scene of Elijah's triumph. The 
king, the princes, and the thousands of Israel 
assembled on that most conspicuous high place, 



58 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

whence one may behold the larger portion of 
the Holy Land. The prophets of Baal began the 
contest, slew their victim, placed it on the altar, 
and called on the name of Baal from morning 
until noontime ; but no answer came. Then they 
leaped up and down upon the altar, and worked 
themselves into paroxysms of excitement. They 
were hundreds in number, but Elijah stood alone 
against them all. When he beheld their miser- 
able plight he ridiculed them with a biting 
irony: "Cry a little louder," he says; "may be 
your god is talking to somebody else, and cannot 
hear you. Perhaps he has gone off on a journey, 
or peradventure he has gone to sleep and needs 
waking up." Whereupon the false prophets be- 
came still more violent, and cut themselves with 
knives so that the blood gushed out upon them. 
And yet no voice or sign of answer from on high. 

And now it is Elijah's turn. He builds his 
altar, digs a trench around it, lays his victim on 
the wood prepared, and in order to make the 
miracle the more astounding, calls for four bar- 
rels of water to be poured thereon, and poured 
on three times over, until the water flooded wood 
and stones and trench about the altar. And 
when Elijah prayed the fire of God came down, 
and not only devoured the sacrifice, but con- 
sumed the wood and the stones of the altar, and 
with its roaring tongues of flame licked up the 
water that was in the trench. 

It would be difficult to conceive a sign from 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 59 

heaven more overwhelming than that. It is 
written that the vast multitude fell prostrate as 
one man, and confessed that Jehovah was the 
true God. 

But what fruits worthy of repentance followed 
that confession? It does not appear that one 
sound or permanent conversion was effected by 
all that sublime display of power. It led to no 
reformation in Israel. The Baal worship con- 
tinued in full force, and Elijah himself fled for 
his life the next day out of the land of Israel. 
Whatever momentary impression the scene on 
Carmel made upon king Ahab and the men of 
Israel, it proved quite insufficient to frighten one 
determined woman. When Jezebel heard of the 
matter and of the death of her prophets, she 
sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So let the 
gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy 
life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about 
this time." And lo, that prophet of fire, so om- 
nipotent on Mount Carmel, ran away out of the 
country, crying like a whipped child, and he hid 
himself in a cave of Mount Horeb. "What doest 
thou here, Elijah?" inquired a heavenly Voice, 
and he answered with amazing self-assurance, 
not to say self-conceit, "I have been very jealous 
for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of 
Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down 
thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword, 
and I, even I, only am left; and they seek my 
life." But the self-conceited and mistaken 



60 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

prophet was at once informed that there were 
seven thousand in Israel that had not bowed the 
knee to Baal. They were doubtless hidden away 
like himself in caves and dens of the land, but 
were divinely nourished on the word of God. 
Then Jehovah revealed to Elijah that sublime 
apocalypse of the "still small voice/' which we 
do well to ponder in these latter times. "Behold, 
the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind 
rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks 
before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the 
wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but 
the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after 
the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in 
the fire: and after the fire a still small voice." 
The obvious lesson of this apocalypse is to teach 
that there are mightier influences than physical 
force working in the history of men and of na- 
tions. The gentle whispers of spiritual com- 
munion may have more of God in them than all 
the blustering noises of the world. The holy life 
and secret prayers of the faithful seven thousand 
in Israel were worth more in the sight of God 
than all the miracles of Elijah. The mighty 
work displayed on Carmel was like the wind and 
earthquake and fire, which might break rocks in 
pieces, but had no power to change one human 
heart. 

II. I pass in the next place to show how this 
truth is illustrated in certain great movements 
of human history. If we believe that "Jesus 



THE GREATER MIRACLES Gl 

Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and 
forever/ 7 we must also believe that God is as 
truly in the world to-day as he was in the days 
of Abraham, or of Moses, or of Jesus. Let us 
not be faithless, nor imagine that God used to 
speak to men but has now cut off communication 
with heaven. Rather let us understand that God 
has provided better things for us in that we are 
heirs of all the blessed revelations of the past, 
and are in position to know more of God and of 
Christ and of the eternal gospel than were even 
Peter and James and John. What our Lord said 
to Peter is to be also understood as applicable 
to every commissioned disciple : "I will give unto 
thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and 
whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be 
bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." This 
means no priestly power of absolution, but a 
divinely appointed ministry of reconciliation. 
The great purposes of Almighty God are to be 
carried on to perfection by the agency of man. 
The angels of heaven may rejoice over the re- 
pentance of sinners, but, as in the case of Corne- 
lius, their ministry is subordinate to that of a 
human apostle in the conversion of the praying 
centurion. God's angels are an innumerable 
company, and one of them was sent to turn the 
thoughts of Cornelius to Peter, and another to 
show Peter a vision that would prepare him for 
a broader mission; but the loosing of Cornelius 



62 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

from his spiritual bonds and the remission of 
his sins must be effected through the ministry 
of one Avho has himself known the saving power 
of the Holy Spirit. In like manner all these 
"greater works" which the disciples do since the 
departure of Jesus to the Father are wrought, 
not by unaided human wisdom, but in the power 
of the Holy Spirit, who takes of the things of 
Christ and reveals them to the human soul. 

It would not be difficult for one who is gov- 
erned by popular sentiment to be persuaded that 
the greatest men of history are warriors, and 
the most important events those great battles 
that have changed the fate of empires. For what 
pages of history are so brilliant as those which 
describe the rush and roar of contending 
armies! What poetry is so immortal as that 
which sings of arms and the conquering hero! 
It was once my privilege to look upon the plain 
of ancient Troy. The snowy crest of Mount Ida 
towered aloft in the distance, and Tenedos lay 
sleeping in the neighboring deep. A few miles 
to the south were the ruins of Alexandria Troas, 
so memorable in the journeys of Saint Paul. 
How could any student of history look upon that 
classic shore without emotion? But I thought 
especially of two great conquerors who made 
that classic plain a point of departure for a 
series of conquests. Alexander of Macedon 
visited the place, and offered sacrifices at the 
tomb of Achilles, exclaiming as he did so, "O 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 63 

fortunate hero, that had a Homer to celebrate 
his name!" And then from that old battlefield 
of legend and poetry he marched away to con- 
quer Asia and the world. He overthrew many 
a city as great perhaps as Priam's capital. He 
subverted all the kingdoms of western Asia and 
Egypt, and led his victorious armies to the rivers 
of India; and then, tradition says, he wept for 
other worlds to conquer. But when that con- 
queror died his vast empire fell to pieces, and 
his generals and their successors fought each 
other till they all went down, and the results of 
all their wars and triumphs are to-day mere 
questions of civilizations and empires that per- 
ished long ago. 

But that plain of Troy is associated with an- 
other hero. Some three hundred years after 
Alexander, Paul passed through those regions, 
and, being "forbidden of the Holy Ghost to 
preach the word in Asia," he went down to 
Alexandria Troas, and there tarried for a night. 
He was probably too much absorbed with his 
divine mission to make any search for the site of 
ancient Troy. He offered no sacrifice at the 
tomb of Achilles, and had no ambition for a 
Homer to immortalize his name. The weapons 
of his warfare were not carnal. His wrestling 
was not with flesh and blood. But in his dreams 
he saw the countrymen of Alexander stretching 
out their hands to him and praying, "Come over 
into Macedonia, and help us." And he crossed 



64 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

over the sea, and began on European soil a series 
of spiritual conquests that have multiplied for 
nearly two millenniums, and have changed the 
civilization of more and greater worlds than 
Alexander knew. For Alexander's conquests 
were like the strong wind, the earthquake, and 
the fire; Paul's rather like the still small voice. 
The pomp and prowess of the Oriental mon- 
archies long ago became like "the chaff of the 
summer threshing floors," but Paul's letters to 
the Philippians, to the Thessalonians, and Cor- 
inthians and Romans are moving more human 
hearts to-day than in any previous age, and far 
more than Alexander ever ruled. 

Bear in mind, further, that Paul was only one 
conspicuous leader in the first outgoings of Chris- 
tianity. Other apostles passed over the same 
fields, and carried the; Light of the world into 
the regions beyond. Their mighty works of 
evangelization led Justin Martyr in the second 
century to say: "There is no people, Greek or 
barbarian, however ignorant of arts or agricul- 
ture, whether they dwell in tents or wander 
about in covered wagons, among whom prayers 
are not offered to the crucified Jesus." Half a 
century later Tertullian addressed his Apology 
to the rulers of Rome, pleading that they would 
not "forbid the truth to reach their ears by the 
secret pathway of a noiseless book," and saying, 
"We are but of yesterday, and yet have filled 
every place among you — cities, islands, fort- 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 65 

resses, market places, the very camp, companies, 
palace, senate, forum — we have left you noth- 
ing but the temples of your gods !" 

Time would fail me to speak of the later 
apostles, who first preached the gospel to the 
savage peoples of the north and west of Europe. 
There was Ulfilas, the bishop of the Goths, whose 
translation of the Bible into a language, which 
he had first to reduce to writing, was like the 
creating of a new heaven and a new earth. And 
there were Cyril and Methodius, who pioneered 
the gospel among the Slavic tribes; and Boni- 
face, the light of Germany ; and Ansgar, the early 
apostle of Scandinavia ; and those three morning 
stars of the British Isles, Augustin of England, 
Patrick of Ireland, and Columba of Scotland. I 
find no fault with the Roman Catholic Church 
in calling all these saints. I would add some 
other names, however, and speak of Saint Luther, 
and Saint Bunyan, and Saint Wesley; of Saint 
Eliot, the Pilgrim Father, whose translation of 
the Scriptures into an Indian language of New 
England was as great a miracle as that of Ulfilas 
among the Goths. I would speak of Saint Wil- 
liam Carey, who carried modern missions into 
far-off India, superintended the printing of God's 
Word in twenty-four languages, and so made it 
accessible to forty millions of human beings. 
Was not that a greater speaking with tongues 
than on the day of Pentecost? 

And I would canonize a number of living 



m BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

heroes. Such apostles as William Butler, ami 
William Taylor, and James M. Thoburn, and 
Frances Willard, and Clara Barton are worthy 
of being catalogued among the saints of God 
before their departure from the world. Why 
wait until after such noble spirits pass from 
earth before glorifying their divine apostleship? 
Alas, it is too much the custom of this world to 
cannonade them while they are among us and 
canonize them after they are dead. Should we 
not, rather, gather some favorite flowers and 
place them in their hand, and wreathe some 
chaplets for the honored brow, before the hand 
is waxen and the brow is marble? 

It is not alone in pioneer missionary labors 
that we are to look for the superior forces of 
Christianity. We may behold them in the edu- 
cating power of its holy doctrines, in its pure 
morality, in its sympathy with the sorrows of 
humanity ; in the binding up the broken-hearted ; 
in its asylums for the deaf and dumb, and blind, 
and aged, and infirm ; in its hospitals for the sick 
and dying; in the elevation of woman and the 
abolition of slavery. 

The Christian traveler at Constantinople finds 
no spot more affecting to the heart than the 
English cemetery, where sleep so many soldiers 
of the Crimean war. There still stands the hos- 
pital where Florence Nightingale stood some- 
times for twenty hours together giving direc- 
tions to the nurses, and cheering the sufferers 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 67 

with kindly words. How many a dying soldier, 
like the Gabriel of Longfellow's Evangeline, 
looked up in the last hours of life's fitful fever 
out of the depths into which he was sinking and 
sinking away, and saw the smiling of that angel 
face! And though it were not the Evangeline 
of his early love, nor the wife or mother of his 
far-away home, the radiance of that saintly face 
put him in contact with the heavenly Love which 
says to the devout disciple, "My peace I give 
unto you." Calmly and submissively would he 
then wrap his blanket around him and sink in 
blissful dreams away. 

Doubtless the rank and social position of 
Florence Nightingale had much to do in making 
her the idol of the English army, and her name 
a household word throughout the world. But 
there have been hundreds of Florence Nightin- 
gales, who, in camp, and hospital, and alms- 
house, and garret, and cellar, and wretched hovel, 
have ministered in like manner to the sick and 
the dying. With a devotion as tender as that of 
Lazarus' sister they have poured precious oint- 
ment on many suffering heads and hands and 
feet, assured that what they did to one of the 
least of these they did unto the Lord who died 
for them. Those blessed eyes which saw in the 
widow's mites an offering greater than all others 
cast into the treasury, see evermore in such acts 
of mercy greater works and higher honors than 
very much which makes a grander show in the 



68 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

world. If earth makes no applause, the heavens 
admire. 

By studying the mighty works of Christian 
love we trace the progress of the gospel in human 
history. The cause of truth and righteousness 
to us seems often crushed to the dust. Our 
poets sing of "Truth forever on the scaffold, 
Wrong forever on the throne." How many times 
have the apostles of human rights been mocked 
and scourged and kept in cruel bonds! But 
those very oppressions have acted like volcanic 
fires long hidden from view, which by and by 
suddenly burst forth and shatter the throne of 
the tyrant and the scaffold of the inquisitor. 
The flaming cross in the heavens, which Con- 
stantine saw, or dreamed he saw, was not so 
much a sign of his victorious wars as of the 
certain triumph of miracles of Christian love and 
suffering, which for three centuries had been 
patiently working in camp and army and palace ; 
in prisons and amphitheaters and catacombs. 
Terrible was the blast of war that shook our 
country during the four memorable years of 1861 
to 1865, but in that time there issued from the 
head and heart and hand of a plain, simple man 
at Washington an oracle of freedom, a procla- 
mation that gave liberty to millions of bondmen. 
What was it that made that word so mighty? 
Not the man who uttered it; not the war which 
furnished its opportunity; it was, rather, the 
sublime fact that the proclamation itself was a 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 69 

miracle of righteousness, the answer of prayers 
and tears as multitudinous as the drops of the 
ocean. In comparison with the wind and earth- 
quake of battles it was like a still small voice; 
but it is mightier in the world to-day than the 
thunders of a thousand battlefields. 

III. I pass now to speak of those mighty 
works of the Spirit, which are revealed in the 
deep experiences of the individual soul. There 
is no philosophy of human life or of history that 
is capable of explaining the facts I have men- 
tioned, which does not take into account the 
supernatural element in the regeneration of a 
single soul. The mighty achievements of Saint 
Paul are not more wonderful than his own con- 
version. It would seem that some of the apostles 
and elders at Jerusalem could sooner believe 
that Peter had raised the dead than that Saul 
of Tarsus had become a Christian. 

I confess to have been moved to tears as I 
once stood before the bronze statue of Saint 
Ansgar in Bremen. The saintly missionary is 
represented with a look of unspeakable tender- 
ness on his face, bending over the kneeling figure 
of a heathen slave; and as he lifts up the rude 
savage and sprinkles the water of baptism on 
his head, the poor man's chains fall off and his 
eye sparkles with the light of heaven. I thought 
I saw in the work of the artist a symbol of all 
genuine conversions to Christ. When we can 
duly appreciate the powers that effect the spirit- 



70 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

ual transformation of one man, then, and then 
only, can we understand the apostle when he 
says, "I can do all things through Christ who 
strengthens me." 

Think for a moment of an intellect that, like 
Athanasius or Augustine, can shape men's 
opinions for a thousand years; or, like Newton 
and Bacon, can guide the steps of searchers 
after truth for centuries; or, like Dante and 
Shakespeare, can sing forever their miracles of 
song; or scientists that minutely calculate the 
motions of the stars, and foretell the day and 
hour and moment in future ages when dark 
eclipses will cast their shadows on the earth. 
Think, further, of the affection and emotion that 
such natures often show, and the unconquerable 
will which the most fearful tortures cannot 
change. Think of the individual soul, in whom 
all these lofty powers combine, exulting in con- 
scious fellowship with Almighty God. Such an 
individual may defy the darkening universe to 

Quench his immortality, 
Or shake his trust in God. 

In the face of enemies, disaster, tortures, and 
death he stands serenely firm, and says: "My 
life is hid with Christ in God." "I take pleasure 
in infirmities, in persecutions, in distresses for 
Christ's sake." "I know that if the earthly house' 
of this tabernacle be dissolved, I have a building 
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 71 

in the heavens." The divine power that begets 
such experiences in one soul can make that soul 
omnipotent for working out its appointed min- 
istry. And it need not be a Paul, a Dante, or 
a Newton ; "the least in the kingdom of heaven'' 
may be as omnipotent in Christ as they. 

Thus we perceive what miracles of power and 
possibility are latent in every human soul. The 
great revolutions which have turned the tides of 
human history were rendered possible only be- 
cause they first took life and purpose in an indi- 
vidual. The German Reformation was first 
wrought out in the soul of Martin Luther. The 
great religious awakening of England and 
America in the eighteenth century is inexplicable 
until we have learned the spiritual struggles of 
Wesley and Whitefield and Edwards. And when 
we study their mighty works of grace let us not 
forget that there were tens of thousands less 
conspicuous, who at the same time were working 
like miracles of heavenly power. He that con- 
verts one sinner from the error of his ways is 
saving a soul from death, and such a miracle is 
greater than the healing of any fleshly body. And 
if one such mighty work is wonderful, how much 
more the liberation of millions of souls from 
chains of darkness and the leprosy of sin ! 

May I indulge, in conclusion, in a little piece 
of fancy? Let us try to imagine what might 
have been the vision of Christ, when, uttering 
the words of our text, he glanced down the 



72 BACCALAUKEATE SEEMONS 

future ages and saw the multitudes whom no 
man could number rising up as so many new 
creations by the power of his Spirit. What 
predictions of the triumphs of the gospel might 
he then have spoken! Let me venture for a 
moment to employ the method of those poets who 
have sought to show the heroes of their song a 
panorama of great events to come. Homer, you 
may remember, took Ulysses to the land of 
shades to learn the destinies of fate. Vergil's 
hero made a journey through Hades to the Ely- 
sian fields, where his father Anchises told him 
the future glories of the Latin race. In Milton's 
Paradise Lost, Adam is taken up into a mount 
of vision, whence an angel shows him the great 
events of sacred story. In like manner poetic 
license may allow us to think of Christ, as 
humanity's great Prophet, revealing to some 
chosen spirits the mighty works which his dis- 
ciples and their successors would accomplish in 
the ages to come. Imagine Him, who during the 
forty days after the resurrection appeared, ac- 
cording to the records, only ten times to the 
disciples, busy those other thirty days among a 
multitude of risen saints, and pointing out to 
them the subsequent outgoings and final tri- 
umphs of the gospel in the world. How might 
they have passed with a speed which only spirits 
know over all the continents and islands of the 
habitable globe! Fancy them visiting with the 
rapidity of thought every acre of the Roman 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 73 

empire and the untrodden spaces of the north of 
Europe, everj T soil and climate of Asia and of 
Africa; crossing the oceans with a speed un- 
known even to our electric cables, and viewing 
the Western continents and all the islands of all 
the seas. Imagine that risen Lord explaining 
how over all those lands the saving word of 
truth would ultimatly win its way; how the toil 
and blood of his martyrs would prove the fruitful 
seed of glorious triumphs, and make the desert 
places and savage islands and dark continents 
blossom as the rose. How might he have paused 
and spoken at many a spot where some great 
truth was destined to triumph, some ancient 
wrong to perish, some mighty soul to behold 
and show forth visions of God ! How might they 
have lingered over the sight of a John Bunyan 
in his Bedford jail, not sleeping idly and alone, 
but dreaming a Christian pilgrim's progress to 
the skies, and even making that dream itself a 
flaming torch to illuminate the way to heaven! 

I have now said or suggested enough to show 
the profound significance of Jesus's words touch- 
ing the greater works w r hich his disciples are to 
do. I would fain hope that we may all more 
deeply appreciate the spiritual forces of Christi- 
anity. Let us admonish one another that we are 
all called to be disciples, and to work the 
miracles and to know the "powers of the world 
to come." With every uplift we may give the 
world of life about us, with every soul we cheer 



74 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

and lead to a better life, with every sinner we 
turn from the error of his ways we may behold 
the upward, onward flight of the apocalyptic 
angel in the midst of heaven. We see the gleam- 
ing of his heavenly robes and hear the sound of 
a voice proclaiming, "The kingdoms of this world 
are becoming the kingdom of our Christ." 

Members of the class of eighteen hundred and 
ninety : In accord with an honored custom I 
address a closing word to you. There is a legend 
of the upper Nile that the colossal statue of 
Memnon was wont to sing when smitten by the 
first rays of the morning sun. And you have 
reached a bright new morning in your lives. 
Whatever of sunshine or shadow the past has 
had for you, you are all naturally touched with 
a spirit of joyful song to-day. We all, old and 
young, must needs be smitten with emotions of 
new life and light whenever the sunrise of a new 
departure breaks upon us. As you go forth from 
the regimen of college life you are surely to do 
greater and better things than it has been pos- 
sible for you to accomplish here. W^hat miracles, 
what mighty works of industry, will you en- 
deavor to perform? 

Standing here and addressing this class in the 
place which it was hoped our late honored presi- 
dent would have occupied to-day, I am moved 
with a feeling of inexpressible sadness. O for 
the presence of that vanished form! O for the 
sound of that voice that for thirty years had 



THE GREATER MIRACLES 75 

been speaking words of godly counsel to classes 
like your own! Blessed are the students that 
have known the impressive power of that royal 
man. If you at all feared him when you were 
freshmen, trusted him when you were sopho- 
mores, admired him when you were juniors, and 
revered and loved him in your senior year, what 
should you think of him now that he is glorified? 
All that was great and good in him is trans- 
figured into imperishable beauty now, and could 
he speak to you to-day from that higher realm 
into which the angels lately led him, his counsels 
would, I think, be little, if at all, different from 
those which he was accustomed to deliver here. 
"Remember," he would say, "the words I spoke 
unto you while I was yet with you." And were 
he to apply to you the special lesson of this hour, 
he would say : "Go forth, young men and w T omen, 
strong in the faith and love of Christ, and do 
the noblest things which ye have seen me do, that 
ye yourselves may also do still greater works 
than these." 



IV 



THE DIVINE VOCATION OF THE MAN 
OF GOD 1 

I am inclined at the beginning of this dis- 
course to say a few things personal. Eleven 
years ago I delivered in this pulpit my inaugural 
address as a professor in the Garrett Biblical 
Institute, and that address was the baccalaureate 
sermon for that year. I came here as successor 
to the lamented Dr. Hemenway, whose saintly 
spirit seems to breathe among us still. Dr. 
Bannister, whose name and memory are also 
precious, had then but recently passed away. 
At the opening of the service on that May 
morning the honored and beloved Dr. Cum- 
mings, president of our University, offered 
prayer. Dr. Charles W. Bennett also worshiped 
with us here that day — Bennett, the broad and 
liberal friend, the gentle and affectionate soul 
in whom we all confided with a peculiar tender- 
ness of feeling. Here by my side sat Dr. Kidg- 
away, whose pure and gentle spirit was an in- 
spiration to the hour, and whose translation from 
us one year ago left this entire community in 
gloom. Ah, those transfigured noblemen of God ! 



1 Preached in the First Methodist Episcopal Church, of Evanston, May 3, 
1896. 

76 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 77 

Not soon shall we look upon their like again. 
But with us still, occupying the same seat he 
occupied that day, is the venerable Nestor of 
our faculty, 1 whose presence is suggestive of the 
spirit and power of Elijah, and whose record 
of continuous work in teaching for more than 
sixty years is, taken all in all, without a parallel 
in the annals of our Church. To have lived and 
labored among such colleagues is no small honor, 
and I deem it obviously fitting to make these 
allusions to the living and the dead, as I stand 
here to-day, to speak of the divine vocation of the 
man of God. 

My text is found in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, 
that impressive apocalyptic chapter, wherein we 
read the vision of the throne of God and the 
winged seraphim. It is well occasionally to go 
back in our studies to the matter and manner of 
the Old Testament preachers. John the Baptist 
was declared by Jesus to be in some ways greater 
than all the prophets who went before him, and 
yet he was less than the least in the New Testa- 
ment kingdom of heaven. Nevertheless, we yet 
turn to the pages of Amos and Hosea and Isaiah 
and learn from them the lessons of eternal life.. 
They are still profitable for teaching, for ad- 
monition and instruction in righteousness. Let 
us to-day look upon the picture of a soul-bur- 
dened prophet, a minister of God whose divine 



1 Reference to Miner Raymond, who occupied his usual place in the church 
that day. 



78 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

call summoned him to proclaim unpleasant 
things, burning words of condemnation against 
existing evils as well as glorious messages of 
hope. In this sixth chapter of Isaiah we behold 
a Hebrew prophet overwhelmed with the vision 
of Jehovah and with a consciousness of his own 
sinfulness. But after one of the seraphim had 
touched his mouth with a live coal from the altar 
he became very bold, and in answer to the 
heavenly voice which asked, "Whom shall I 
send, and who will go for us?" he said, "Here am 
I; send me." In these brief words, two leading 
thoughts appear — a Person and a Mission. How 
old Isaiah was at the time of this divine call we 
are not told. He tells us that it was in the year 
that King Uzziah died. The prophet Ezekiel was 
in his thirtieth year when the heavens were 
opened unto him and he saw visions of God. 
Samuel was a little child when, in the silence 
of the sanctuary, he heard the voice of God 
saying, "Behold I do a thing in Israel at which 
the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle." 
Moses was an old man of eighty years when he 
saw the vision of the burning bush. But Jere- 
miah seems to have been yet young when he was 
called to prophesy, for he said, "Ah, Lord God ! 
Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child." When 
a young man, Isaiah had doubtless often heard 
the elders tell how the northern army broke down 
the wall of Jerusalem, rifled the holy city, and 
carried off the vessels of the temple. Under the 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 79 

prosperous reign of Uzziah all those breaches 
had been repaired, and the rulers of Judah had 
grown proud and voluptuous. They had intro- 
duced strange customs from foreign lands, and 
reveled in luxury. The daughters of Zion went 
up and down the streets with lofty air and ogling 
eyes and tinkling anklets, and crescents and 
amulets, and nose-jewels. Hosea had uttered his 
oracles against Ephraim and Samaria. Amos 
also had traveled from his far home in Tekoa, 
and declared divine sentence of judgment against 
the altars and the royal houses of Samaria. All 
these things must have made deep impressions 
on the youthful Isaiah. They occupied his 
thoughts by day and filled his dreams by night. 
In one of those night visions he seems to have 
been standing in the court of the temple, where 
he had probably often stood before, looking up 
at the great folding doors on which were carved 
the "cherubim, and palm trees, and open 
flowers." Suddenly the great doors opened and 
all the intervening veils were parted, and he 
gazed afar into the Holy of holies, and saw 
Jehovah on his lofty throne, with the seraphim 
above him and around him, filling the temple 
with the symbols of his holiness. Such visions 
have overwhelming power; but the throne and 
seraphs and robe and smoke and voices were all 
parts of one composite symbol designed to con- 
vey an indelible impression of the holiness of 
God. 



80 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

I 

Three things are noteworthy in this inspiring 
vision. First, we may affirm that no prophet 
or minister of God is fully prepared for his 
divine mission who has not at some time and 
in some w r ay been given to behold the secret place 
of the Most High. It is not probable that any 
man will preach a holier concept of God than he 
himself has seen. No man can preach a greater 
Christ than he himself has personally known. 

I fear it is quite too common for us to sup- 
pose that such wonderful visions of God were 
things of long ago, and that the Holy One of 
Israel no longer speaks to men. But we must 
not suppose that God cares less for his world 
now than in the days of Isaiah. Let us not 
perpetuate the deistic error of assuming that 
ages ago God created the world and established 
all its movements and all its contents under 
fixed laws of nature, and thenceforward left all 
things to move onward under the dominion of 
unchangeable law. Our present-day philosophy, 
as well as our theology, repudiates that con- 
cept of nature and of God. The Holy One has 
not withdrawn afar off, but is at all times nearer 
to us than we can think. The ancient theoph- 
anies have all been eclipsed by the revelation of 
God in. Jesus Christ, reconciling the world unto 
himself, "and we all, with unveiled face behold- 
ing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are 
transformed into the same image," 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 81 

Dr. Matheson, of Edinburgh, affirms that there 
is not a religion in the world that does not in 
some way presuppose the doctrine of an incar- 
nation. He maintains that it "pervades the 
whole circle of sacred thought. It animates the 
worship of the Brahman, it underlies the creed 
of the polytheist, it is bound up in the philosophy 
of the Platonist, it is necessary to the belief of 
the theist, it is the life and soul of the faith of 
the Christian." The fundamental idea is that 
God shows himself to man. Whether in dreams 
or visions, in self-examination, in processes of 
reasoning, in outpourings of the heart and in- 
tuitions of a Power that may attend to such 
prayerful yearning, in interchange of opinions 
and reasoning with his fellow men — in one way 
or in another, or in many ways, the image of God 
presents itself before him in forms of human 
thought. And these theophanies are not a vague 
notion of the past. God talks as familiarly with 
men to-day as in the days of Abraham or of 
Isaiah. Let me quote the language of a saintly 
minister of Christ : "The celestial city is full in 
view; its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan 
me, its odors are wafted to me, its music strikes 
upon my ear, and its spirit breathes into my 
heart. The Sun of righteousness has been grad- 
ually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing 
larger and larger, as he approached, and now 
he fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a 
flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an 



82 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

insect in the beams of the sun; exulting, yet 
almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive 
brightness, and wondering with unutterable 
wonder why God should deign thus to shine upon 
a sinful worm." 

This declaration of Edward Payson is com- 
parable with the vision of Isaiah. And similar 
experiences of other Christian saints might be 
recorded in great number. Martin Luther, John 
Bunyan, Eichard Baxter, Jonathan Edwards, 
and Matthew Simpson had visions and revela- 
tions of God as rich and potent as those of any 
Hebrew prophet of the former times. And the 
Christian revelations possess a content far in 
advance of those given to the ancient fathers 
and prophets. Let no one presume to say that 
these later experiences are only idealistic fancy 
or expressions of poetic ecstasy. They breathe 
the same spirit that is apparent in the holiest 
oracles of God. Is it a travesty on heavenly 
gifts when our modern psalmists utter such 
spiritual songs as these? 

We come, great God, to seek thy face, 

And for thy loving kindness wait: 
And 0, how dreadful is this place! 

'Tis God's own house, 'tis heaven's gate. 
Tremble our hearts to find thee nigh: 

To thee our trembling hearts aspire: 
And lo! we see descend from high 

The pillar and the cloud of fire. 
Still let it on the assembly stay, 

And all the house with glory fill. 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 83 

Or listen to Charles Wesley, as he sings: 

Long my imprisoned spirit lay 
Fast bound in sin and nature's night: 

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray; 
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; 

My chains fell off, my heart was free, 
I rose, went forth and followed thee. 

These words and all such burning hymns of 
faith bear their own witness of direct inspira- 
tion of God, and also of the faith of the holy 
church universal. Is there anything in the 
Prophets and the Psalms that is better adapted 
to lead the prayerful soul into the Holy of holies 
than the following? 

The veil that hides thy glory rend, 
And here in saving power descend 

And fix thy blest abode; 
Here to our hearts thyself reveal, 
And let each waiting spirit feel 

The presence of our God. 

May I not appropriately, at this point, put a 
few direct questions to you, young men, who 
feel called to be prophets and apostles of God? 
Have you ever had an unmistakable vision of the 
Holy One? Were you ever permitted, like the 
youthful Isaiah, to gaze into the opened temple 
of God and to hear a voice from the secret place 
saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go 
for us?" Be admonished that without some such 
heavenly vision you can hardly expect to be able 
and efficient ministers of the mysteries of God. 

A second thing to notice in this divine call of 



84 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

Isaiah is the direct effect of the heavenly vision 
on his heart. He was overwhelmed with a sense 
of his own sinfulness, and he cried out in a deep 
emotion, "Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because 
I am a man of unclean lips . . . for mine eyes 
have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Hearing 
the seraphim cry, "Holy, holy, holy," and seeing 
them veil their faces with their wings, he might 
well have felt his own unfitness to stand in such 
a presence. The very word "Holiness" would 
seem to be defiled in lips like his. 

The effect of all such visions of the holy and 
righteous God is to work a deep conviction of 
sin. Other facts in sacred story bear witness 
to this truth. When the people of Israel beheld 
the majesty of God at Mount Sinai they trembled 
and stood afar off, and said unto Moses, "Speak 
thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God 
speak with us, or we die." Mahoah felt like 
terror when he said, "We shall surely die, be- 
cause we have seen God." Simon Peter showed 
the same kind of conviction when, on perceiving 
the supernatural power of Jesus, he fell at his 
knees and cried out, "Depart from me, for I am 
a sinful man, O Lord!" And how thrillingly 
are the enemies of God portrayed in the Apoca- 
lypse, as calling to the mountains and to the 
rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of 
him that sitteth on the throne, and from the 
wrath of the Lamb." Such profound and far- 
reaching conviction of sin is indispensable to 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 85 

the serious and earnest prophet of God. Under 
the gospel, as well as under the law, the efficient 
preacher of righteousness must perceive and de- 
clare the exceeding sinfulness of sin. If he 
reason convincingly of righteousness and tem- 
perance and the judgment to come, so that bad 
men tremble, he must possess in some measure 
God's own concept of sin and of guilt. 

The third fact to be noticed in connection 
with Isaiah's call is the touching of his mouth 
with the live coal from the altar of Jehovah. 
One touch of that seraj^hic fire, and his inner life 
is transfigured as by an electric flash and he 
becomes a new creation. He begins at once to 
feel God's emotions, and to think God's thoughts 
after him. He begins to see as he is seen and to 
know as he is known. 

Thus we are shown the nature of a heavenly 
call to preach the gospel of God. Into this 
glorious ideal we see the three essential ele- 
ments — a vision of the High and Holy One, a 
profound conception of sin, and the cleansing 
touch and baptism of celestial fire. By such 
heavenly anointing all natural endowments, all 
acquirements of knowledge, and all forces what- 
ever that enter into the texture of personal char- 
acter are transfigured into so many powers of 
God. Thus is one caught up into living fellow- 
ship with God, and, glowing with his baptism 
of fire as if he were exalted among the seraphim, 
he will be eager to fly the wide world over, and 



86 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

carry coals of heavenly light and fire to every 
people. 

II 

With this grand ideal of a divinely called and 
consecrated man of God in our thoughts, let us 
pass to consider Ms mission and his message. 
Isaiah heard a voice from the throne inquiring, 
"Whom shall we send, and who will go for us?" 
And he who a little while before shrank from 
the insufferable light now quickly answered, 
"Here am I; send me." How responsive and 
ready for action the soul that is quickened by 
the fire of God! But the language of Isaiah's 
divine commission is very peculiar. The voice 
said : "Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, 
but understand not; and see ye indeed, but per- 
ceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and 
make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest 
they see with their eyes, and hear with their 
ears, and understand with their heart, and turn 
again, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how 
long? And he answered, Until cities be waste 
without inhabitant, and houses without man, and 
the land become utterly waste." 

This language is to be understood as a strong 
Hebrew way of saying things. We may faith- 
fully paraphrase it thus : "Isaiah, go and pro- 
claim my message, but know at the start your 
preaching is to be a ministry of doom. It will 
serve to deepen the guilt of this sinful nation, 
for they will not heed the word of warning ; their 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 87 

hearts are covered over with the surfeit and fat- 
ness of worldly greed. Their ears are so full of 
the clamor of this world that they will not listen 
to the word of God. Their eyes are blind to 
sights of heavenly beauty which only the pure 
in heart can know." 

What a burden must such a message have 
been upon a youthful prophet's heart! A min- 
istry of doom! A proclamation of disastrous 
judgment on the people of Judah. We take up 
the book of his prophecies and read such mes- 
sages as these: "Woe unto them that decree un- 
righteous decrees, turn aside the needy from 
judgment, and take away the right of the poor 
of my people, that widows may be their spoil, 
and that they may make the fatherless their prey. 
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth ! I have 
nourished and brought up children and they have 
rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner 
and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth 
not know; my people doth not consider. The 
vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of 
Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant, 
and he looked for judgment, and behold oppres- 
sion; for righteousness, and behold a cry." 

Such was the character of a large proportion 
of Isaiah's preaching. Well might the astonished 
prophet ask, "How long, O Lord; how long?" 
But he received the doleful answer, "Until cities 
be waste without inhabitant, and the land be- 
come utterly desolate." Was ever a minister of 



88 BACCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

God sent forth upon a mission more discourag- 
ing? One ray of light only seems to come into 
the prophet's vision, and that is the mention of 
a "holy seed" which is destined to survive the 
desolating judgments. He is told that a tenth 
part of the stricken people may remain ; but that 
surviving tenth will so far fail to profit by the 
lessons of the past that they must needs be again 
smitten by the burning judgment of God. Like 
an oak tree, the stump of which remains with 
germs of life after the tree is felled, so the 
smitten people may come to life and growth again 
in some future time and under new conditions. 

What lessons now may the minister of Jesus 
Christ learn from these trying experiences of 
the Hebrew prophet? The word "gospel" means 
a message of good news, "glad tidings of great 
joy"; may the bearer of such tidings be also a 
prophet of fearful judgment? It should be ob- 
served that our Lord Jesus quoted this very chap- 
ter of Isaiah when he spoke his parable of the 
sower and the seed, and he declared that the 
prophecy was then and there again fulfilled. 
The hearts of the people of his day were hard, 
and their eyes were blind to the truth, and their 
ears were dull of hearing. How like Isaiah him- 
self did he plead with his nation! — "O Jeru- 
salem, Jerusalem, that stoneth the prophets! 
How often I would have gathered thy children 
together, and ye would not ! Behold, your house 
is left unto you desolate." Human nature is 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 89 

the same to-day as in Isaiah's time, and the 
faithful minister of Jesus will be found to be, 
like his Lord, a man of sorrows. 

It is well, then, for the young minister of the 
gospel to be admonished beforehand that some 
people to whom he preaches will not receive his 
message. His word will come to many a heart 
that is already filled with other voices. There 
is the young man who has great possessions in 
his eye, or his ear is ravished with infatuating 
siren songs. There is the young woman charmed 
with the fascinations of fashion and display, like 
the daughters of Zion to whom Isaiah prophe- 
sied. There is the ambitious politician ready to 
barter away his honor for a place of power. 
There is the radical socialist and the wild an- 
archist who cry out against all ministers and 
churches that decline to adopt their theories. 
And there is the plutocrat and monopolist, like 
those of whom Isaiah spoke, who join house to 
house, and add field to field, and oppress the 
hireling in his wages. And there is the pitiable 
miser, the slave of the covetousness which is 
idolatry. And along with all these is that count- 
less throng who "walk in the counsel of the 
ungodly, and stand in the way of sinners, and 
sit in the seat of the scornful." 

It is obvious, therefore, that the man of God, 
fully awake to his responsibility and divine vo- 
cation, must often feel the pressure of a burdened 
spirit. Like his Master, he will be a man of 



90 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

sorrows and acquainted with grief. He may at 
times come under such a fearful sense of sin 
and misery as to cry out with Jeremiah, "Oh 
that my head were waters, and mine eyes a foun- 
tain of tears, that I might weep day and night 
for the slain of the daughter of my people!" 

Meanwhile, we should not so magnify the 
seriousness and the sorrow of the man of God 
in his ministries of trial as to forget that the 
human heart is an instrument of a thousand 
strings. The soul that is capable of genuine 
grief for the sins and woes of men is also ca- 
pable of joy unspeakable. A New Testament 
epistle which exalts the law in its condemnation 
of all evildoers calls the good tidings of salva- 
tion in Christ "the gospel of the glory of the 
blessed God." There are infinite resources of 
joy and blessedness in the bosom of God, and 
it is his good pleasure that our joy should be 
full. We are not to suppose that Isaiah and Jere- 
miah went about always with a dark counte- 
nance, and only with words of wrath and lamen- 
tation, for no prophets of the Old Testament have 
spoken sweeter words than they. Nor let us 
forget that Jesus himself, who is so often spoken 
of as a man of sorrows, came eating and drink- 
ing, mingling with publicans and sinners, and 
bringing joy to darkened homes. His first 
miracle was wrought at a marriage festival. He 
pronounced beatitudes on them that mourn, and 
said, "Rejoice, and be exceeding glad." And 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 91 

why should not He, who bears the sorrows of 
the whole world upon his heart, be most com- 
petent to comfort all that mourn? And that 
minister of Christ who comes nearest to his 
Master in his sufferings will best know how to 
scatter sunshine on the darkened pathways of 
human life. The most helpful and lovable of 
people are those Avho have been "perfected 
through suffering." The mystery of sorrow is, 
in fact, the mystery of God in Christ reconciling 
the world unto himself. 

Ill 

It remains to speak of the notable ray of light 
that cheered Isaiah's mission. He was told of a 
Holy Seed that would survive the fires of dis- 
cipline and judgment. That vision of hope 
furnished an inspiration to the prophet in the 
midst of all the gloom and trials of his ministry. 
We trace it in the significant names of his chil- 
dren, and in the picture of the sprout growing 
up out of the stock and root of Jesse, which 
was to stand for an ensign of the nations. We 
are told in the next chapter that one of his sons 
was named Shear-jashub, which means, "A rem- 
nant shall return." In the same chapter an- 
other child, to be born of a virgin, is called 
Immanuel. A little further on he tells us of 
another son, to whom he gives a name that means 
"The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth." And 
then follows the exultant word of Messianic 



92 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

prophecy: "Unto us a child is born, unto us a 
son is given; and the government shall be upon 
his shoulder; and his name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting 
Father, Prince of Peace." 

These magnificent prophecies, enshrined in 
suggestive symbolic names, filled Isaiah's future 
with golden Messianic hopes. And they abide 
with us to this day, full of significance to every 
faithful minister of God. They show us that 
God rules in the history of the world. Israel 
went into exile, desolation swept over the land 
of Judah, but a remnant returned from exile. 
God spoiled the nations which afflicted Israel, 
and made them a prey to other conquerors. In 
due time the Christ was born, and he has proved 
his right to be called Immanuel ! He now sitteth 
at the right hand of God, and must reign until 
he has put all his enemies under his feet. All 
his people, and especially all his chosen minis- 
ters, are expected to offer themselves willingly 
in the day of his power. They gather about him 
and battle for him as part and parcel of that holy 
seed who are destined to bruise the serpent's 
head. They are encouraged by the faithful say- 
ing, "If we die with him, we shall also live with 
him; if we suffer with him, we shall also reign 
with him." Hence the ever hopeful song of the 
soldier of the cross: 

Thy saints in all this glorious war 
Shall conquer, though they die: 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 93 

They see the triumph from afar, 
By faith they bring it nigh. 

We have heard of the great commanders and 
conquerors of the world. There were Shal- 
manezer and Sargon of Assyria ; Nebuchadnezzar 
of Babylon, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander of 
Macedon, Julius Caesar, and many mighty cap- 
tains of later times. They all had their cares 
and woes; but the world never thinks of them 
as sacrificing self for others' weal. They were 
in too many cases the incarnation of selfishness 
and cruelty. But of Christ we read that "It 
became him, for whom are all things, and by 
whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto 
glory, to make the captain of their salvation per- 
fect through sufferings." And every ambassador 
of the Lord Jesus is to have the same mind 
which was in him. 

The helpful lessons, then, which all of us may 
learn from the vision and mission of Isaiah are 
not a few. They are lessons for the present as 
well as for the past. They even wax more sig- 
nificant with the ages. 

1. We have seen that no ministry of godli- 
ness is like to succeed without the inspiration 
of some vision of the High and Holy One who 
inhabiteth eternity. But he that has been gifted 
with the secret of the Lord, and has heard 
seraphic voices from the throne, carries in the 
depths of his soul an abiding Comforter. No 
changes of time or of place will efface the holy 



94 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

vision. Whether his mission be to Greenland's 
icy mountains or India's coral strand; in the 
wilds of Africa or the far-away islands of the 
sea; in the torrid climes of the Southland or 
among the dugouts of the rude frontier, he will 
be so pure in heart as to see God everywhere. 
The northern Aurora and the eternal icebergs 
will speak to him of the Majesty who covers him- 
self with light as with a garment, and layeth 
the beams of his chambers in the waters. No 
lonely island or desert waste will be so isolated 
but that, like the seer of Patmos, he will hear 
behind him a great Voice, saying "Fear not; I 
am the root and the offspring of David, the 
bright and morning star." Though he be sent 
among the heights of the mountains, even there 
will the wild eagle flying in mid heaven exalt 
him with the thought of proclaiming the ever- 
lasting gospel to every nation and tribe and 
tongue. 

2. Another lesson from this Scripture is that 
no mission, divinely ordered and pursued, is a 
failure. It may not show immediate fruit. It 
may lead to many grievous disappointments, and 
fill the faithful prophet's soul with pungent sor- 
row. But God rules the ages. "The fathers, 
where are they? and the prophets, do they live 
forever?" But the prophetic word abides, and 
witnesses to many generations. In a later chap- 
ter of Isaiah it is written: "As the rain cometh 
down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth 



THE DIVIXE VOCATION 95 

not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh 
it bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the 
sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word 
be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall 
not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish 
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the 
thing whereto I sent it." And so the tired and 
tempted minister may comfort himself with the 
saying, "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bear- 
ing precious seed, shall doubtless come again 
with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." 

3. Another important truth to cherish is that 
every consecrated minister of the Lord Jesus is 
an associate of the heavenly King in his work 
of reconciling the world unto God. We are to 
be partakers of the sufferings of the Christ as 
well as of the glory that is to follow. We can 
therefore afford to let patience have its perfect 
work. He who sees the end from the beginning 
can afford to move slowly in his ways; for he 
moves surely, and he knows that the counsels of 
wickedness cannot prevail. 

In conclusion, I ask you to look a moment at 
two pictures from the pages of the past. Such 
pictures might be multiplied; for from the days 
of the Hebrew prophets until now there have 
been many who proved disobedient to the 
heavenly vision. In Paul's letter to the Colos- 
sians he mentions Demas along with Luke, the 
beloved physician, as joining in his salutation 
to the Church. But in Second Timothy he 



96 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

writes, "Demas hath forsaken rue, having loved 
the present world." 

I sorrowfully call to mind to-day a young 
minister whose praise was in all the churches 
when I began to preach. Great revivals marked 
his ministry in many a town. When he stood up 
to preach, his lips seemed to have been touched 
by seraphic fire. But in an evil hour the voices 
of the world and of the flesh proved to be more 
potent with him than the voice of God. He 
turned aside and fell from his holy calling, and 
was expelled from the Church and ministry to 
which he had consecrated his life under the most 
sacred vows. I cannot recall his name and his 
fall but with emotions of unspeakable sadness. 

I turn away from that sad memory, and look 
on many another picture, glorious in its con- 
trast. Many years ago there went out from this 
Biblical Institute a young man in whose soul 
God had spoken with a power not unlike the 
vision of Isaiah. He displayed no remarkable 
gifts. He was not a star sought after by the 
changeful crowds, but he was ever faithful to 
his heavenly trust. He shrank not from declar- 
ing the whole counsel of God. He taught pub- 
licly and from house to house. He helped the 
weak, cheered the sorrowing, and lifted many 
a mourner from the dust. He visited the father- 
less and widows in their affliction, and kept 
himself unspotted from the world. He won and 
kept the hearts of thousands by his pure and 



THE DIVINE VOCATION 97 

simple ways, and died all too young, we thought, 
though in the maturity of his noble manhood. 
He fought a good fight, he kept the faith, he 
fell at his post, beloved, honored, and wept by 
his brethren, whose greatest sorrow for him was 
that they should see his face no more. 

There were many mourners at his funeral ; but 
could their tearful eyes have seen the heavens 
open, and that true and trusted prophet stand- 
ing at the throne, they would have heard the 
same voice that called him into his divine voca- 
tion, speaking again, and saying, "Thou wast 
faithful over a few things; I will make thee 
ruler over many things.'' 

Many others have gone out from this biblical 
school, whose names and record deserve equal 
praise. Not a few have attained far greater fame 
than John H. Eigby, to whom I have just re- 
ferred. But I point, rather, to this one, luminous 
in the simplicity of a true heart, whose solid 
worth each one of you may emulate and follow 
as he followed Christ. O for a personality glow- 
ing with visions of the High and Holy One, and 
a divine vocation mighty with messages of truth 
from Him that dwelleth between the cherubim ! 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 1 

Baccalaureate Sunday offers an excellent 
opportunity for the public discussion of great 
themes. One is naturally moved to select some 
open question of the times, some important doc- 
trine of theology, some problem of biblical criti- 
cism, some matter of civil and social relations, 
or even, perchance, some question of interna- 
tional significance and world-civilization. The 
sober discussion of such great subjects is as 
eminently proper as it is inviting for exceptional 
occasions. I have chosen for this hour a topic 
somewhat more modest perhaps in its aim, but 
one specifically appropriate for the time and 
place, namely, the Ministry of the Gospel. If 
this be in any sense a more modest or less am- 
bitious theme than some of those suggested, it 
is nevertheless one of highest import. I desire 
to call attention to some of the main elements 
which ought to be emphasized in the office and 
work of the true minister of Jesus Christ. 

'Tis not a cause of small import, 

The pastor's care demands; 
But what might fill an angel's heart, 

And filled a Saviour's hands. 



1 Preached in the First Methodist Episcopal Church, of Evanston, May 26, 
1901. 

98 




Professor Terry at Fifty 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 99 

I shall put my thoughts in the form of a bac- 
calaureate homily, and call it such, and, in 
accordance with time-honored usage, I announce 
a number of texts of Scripture, which to a great 
extent embody the substance of what is to be 
understood by the ministry of the gospel. Mark 
16. 15 : "Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
gospel to the whole creation." 1 Tim. 4. 16 : 
"Take heed to thyself, and to thy teaching." 
2 Tim. 2. 15: "Giye diligence to present 
thyself approyed unto God, a workman that 
needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the 
word of truth." 2 Tim. 4. 1, 2: "I charge 
thee in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, 
. . . preach the word; be instant in season, out 
of season; reproye, rebuke, exhort, with all long 
suffering and teaching." 

I cite all these scriptures for the grand total 
impression they are adapted to make upon the 
mind of a thoughtful reader. They need no 
textual analysis and call for no formal exposi- 
tion. I commend them to all ministers of Christ 
as words of heayenly wisdom. And I exhort 
you, young men, to commit them to memory, and 
bind them as inspired phylacteries upon your 
soul. In the words of Israel's ancient law, I 
may well say, "Bind them for a sign upon thy 
hand, and let them be for frontlets between thine 
eyes." 

No man is to take upon himself a work so 
high and sacred unless he is clearly called of 



100 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

God. The Holy Spirit has his many ways of 
making this divine call known to the individual 
soul, and no man may presume to say to his 
brother that he is unquestionably called of God. 
Not a few good men of mediocre gifts have been 
unwisely counseled by overzealous friends. 
Some run before they are sent. Others are re- 
markably headstrong in declaring that they are 
called to preach, but fail sadly to perceive that 
nobody seems called of God to hear them. Our 
Methodist Discipline enumerates several inter- 
rogatory tests by which we may try those per- 
sons who profess to be moved by the Holy Spirit 
to preach. It asks whether they know God, and 
have his love abiding in them. Have they mani- 
fest gifts for the work, a clear, sound under- 
standing? Do they speak readily and clearly? 
Have any been truly convinced of sin and con- 
verted to God, and are believers edified by their 
preaching? We want all these marks to concur 
in one and the same person before we may feel 
satisfied that he is truly called of God to the 
work of the Christian ministry. It is not suffi- 
cient merely that a man be gifted in prayer, or be 
mighty in exhortation. One may also be wise 
to win souls to Christ, and may turn many a 
sinner from the error of his ways, and yet not 
be a suitable person to set apart to the work of 
the ministry of the gospel. And now, whatever 
else may be said, I submit that every one who is 
truly called of God to preach the gospel must 



THE MINISTEY OF THE GOSPEL 101 

have and must show these three superior marks 
of the heavenly calling : ( 1 ) a deep, all-consum- 
ing passion for the knowledge of God and of 
Christ; (2) a like deep passion of soul for the 
salvation of men from sin; and (3) a corre- 
sponding desire and ambition to acquire all pos- 
sible knowledge and wdsdom for the work of 
his ministry. I say knowledge and wisdom, for, 
to use Cowper's well-known lines, 

Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, 
Have ofttimes no connection; knowledge dwells 
In heads replete with thoughts of other men; 
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 

I. Consecrated Personality 

But having now in mind the man truly called 
of God, our first point will be to enforce the 
apostolic precept, "Take heed to thyself." The 
separate, distinctive personality of each indi- 
vidual is to be estimated for all that it may pos- 
sibly be worth in the sight of God and man. 
How did Elisha differ from Elijah? What is 
Apollos, and what is Paul? And who maketh 
thee to differ from thy brother? When we speak 
the names of great apostles, and of Chrysostom, 
Whitefield, Spurgeon, Simpson, and Phillips 
Brooks, with each name a distinctive and power- 
ful personality comes before the mind. We may 
discourage common men by pointing out such 
transcendent ministers of God and saying, 
"Those are the models for you, young men, to 



102 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

copy." But no one should allow himself to be 
discouraged by the feeling that such exceptional 
apostles fill a place that he can never hope to 
reach. We may naturally reason that if God 
wished all the pulpits occupied with men of that 
superior cast, he would not have raised them 
up so few and far between. Were all ministers 
of that order and style, large tracts of God's 
vineyard would go uncared for. But even among 
those great lights in the Church, no two are 
alike, and they each have a partial following. 
One says, "I am of Paul"; and another, "I am 
of Apollos" ; and yet another will say, "I prefer 
Sam Jones above them all!" And if all these 
were preaching at one time in one great city, 
there would be tens of thousands who would 
take little pains to hear any one of them. I even 
venture the assertion that for every one of those 
famous preachers whose names are known and 
read of all men, there have been a thousand able 
ministers of the New Testament, unknown to 
fame, whose work of faith and labor of love and 
patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ were 
equal to the greatest; and as for the real value 
of their service in the sight of God, many of 
them perhaps were not a whit behind the chief 
of the apostles. 

For an illustration of consecrated individu- 
ality I may well name here one Christian brother 
strikingly different from any I have mentioned, 
one who has often spoken from this pulpit, and 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 103 

was always heard with gladness by the masses 
of the people — D wight L. Moody. I have often 
heard him when he seemed to commit wanton 
violence upon the grammar of the English 
language. I have heard from him expositions 
of Scripture and statements of doctrine which 
could not be maintained by sound principles of 
interpretation and of rational argument. But 
his preaching cut men to the heart. His deep 
convictions, singleness of heart, and earnestness 
of manner seemed to make even his infirmities 
a power with men. His personality was a living 
epistle. I do not know that he ever asked or 
desired authority from man or from the Church 
to preach. He was an exceptional prophet sent 
forth from God to preach and to teach in his 
own peculiar way. I simply point him out as 
a notable example of consecrated personality. 
He revealed in his work the three qualities I 
specified — strong, passionate yearning after the 
living God, a passion for winning the souls of 
men to God, and a remarkable wisdom and 
knowledge for doing his own work in his own 
way. 

Here, then, is our first lesson. Each minister 
of Christ is to work in his own distinctive per- 
sonality. He must see and know for himself 
and not for another. He must needs be a man 
of heavenly vision. He must have in some deep, 
certain way essentially what Paul speaks of when 
he tells us that his gospel was not received from 



104 BACCALAUKEATE SEKMONS 

man but through revelation of Jesus Christ. He 
must know that God has called him through his 
grace and revealed his Son in him by a profound 
experience of his soul. He must know the beati- 
tude of the pure in heart who see the living God. 
Quite apart from all delusion or self-hallucina- 
tion, the chosen minister at holy hours may see 
God, as did Moses, in some burning bush; like 
the child Samuel, he may hear him calling in the 
silence of the night, and giving him a message 
adapted to make the ears of them that hear it 
tingle. He may have visions as impressive and 
abiding as that in which Isaiah saw the seraph 
take a live coal from God's altar and touch it 
to his lips. Paul tells us he was not disobedient 
to his heavenly vision; but at first he withdrew 
a while into Arabia, and I imagine him going 
away to the back of the wilderness in Horeb, 
where Moses saw the burning bush, and where 
Elijah had his revelation of the still, small voice. 
Perhaps it was then and there that he was caught 
up to the third heaven, and heard the unspeak- 
able words (2 Cor. 12. 4). 

I call you to witness that such ideals of the 
heavenly calling and of a personal communion 
with God transcend the sphere of ethics. They 
imply heights and depths of religious attain- 
ment which are never thought of as essential to 
the moral life of man. The noblest ethical sys- 
tem may deal with many things that are holy 
and just and good, but at the same time know 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 105 

nothing of "the spirit of life in Christ Jesus 
which makes one free from the law of sin and of 
death." But the ministry of the gospel has to 
deal with godly sorrow for sin and with the 
facts of pardon, regeneration, sanctification, and 
redemption. It proclaims a blessed access by 
faith into a state of life in which one may stand 
and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 
This kind of personal knowledge of Christ brings 
with it the vision of God, joy in the Holy Ghost, 
the pure heart, the tender conscience. Without 
these no man can prove himself a true ambas- 
sador of the Lord Jesus. No man can possibly 
preach a greater Christ than he himself has 
known in his own heart. Here is the root of 
the whole matter : "Take heed to thyself." For 
how can one preach the gospel of the Kingdom 
if it has not been given to him to know the 
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven? 

II. An Authorized Public Teacher 

But our apostolic homily goes on to say that 
the minister must also give heed to his teaching. 
"Preach the word." "Handle aright the word of 
truth." "Hold the pattern of sound words." 
"Speak thou the things which befit the sound 
doctrine." Such are some of the expressions used 
by the apostle to enforce his ideas of the sub- 
stance of doctrine to be preached. 

My highest ideal of the Church of the twen- 
tieth century is that it be a teaching Church. 



106 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

With a large proportion of our ministers there 
appears much more anxiety to make new con- 
verts to Christ than to build up converts already 
won in the knowledge and love of God. Dare 
we suppose or suggest that a like proportion of 
our ministers are incompetent or inefficient as 
public teachers of righteousness — incompetent to 
handle aright the word of God's truth? It is 
great and wonderful to convert a sinner from 
the error of his ways, but what about his after 
instruction in righteousness? There is joy in 
the presence of the angels of God over one sinner 
that repenteth, but think you there is any less 
delight in the steadfast perseverance of a ran- 
somed soul that stands fast in the liberty of 
Christ? It is easy for us sometimes to miscon- 
strue the teachings of our Lord by a narrow and 
one-sided range of thought. Blind Pharisees and 
scribes need to be shown what joy prevails in 
heaven over one repentant sinner when they 
themselves are too self-righteous to see their own 
spiritual poverty. But think you that auy good 
shepherd ever rejoiced much over the recovery 
of one lost sheep, when, on coming home, he 
found that the ninety and nine had been torn 
and scattered by the wolves in his absence? 
Does any sane man for a moment suppose that 
the rescue of one lost sheep is of more importance 
than the safe-keeping of ninety and nine? 

The first and highest function of the minister 
of the gospel is to preach the Word. But what 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 107 

is the Word? Let us avoid putting a narrow 
technical meaning on this term. Some tell us 
that the Bible is the Word of God, and they 
presume to admonish us against saying that it 
contains the Word of God. I prefer, however, 
the well-worded statement of our fifth Article 
of Eeligion, which says that "the Holy Scrip- 
tures contain all things necessary to salvation," 
that is, all the great truths or doctrines of sal- 
vation by God through Jesus Christ. Also, in 
the service for the ordination of elders, every 
candidate for the ministry is asked: "Are you 
persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain 
sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for 
eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ? 
And are you determined out of the said Scrip- 
tures to instruct the people committed to your 
care?" All this obviously means that the minister 
of Christ is to find the substance of his public 
teaching in the Holy Scriptures, which Paul de- 
clares to be "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
for correction, for discipline in righteousness." 

Furthermore, if you would understand what 
the Word of God is, you cannot fasten your at- 
tention solely on the letter of the Scriptures. 
You must go beyond the Bible as a book of 
revelation, or as a library of sacred books. You 
must rise higher, or sink deeper in the Word 
than by a mere giving heed to endless geneal- 
ogies of manuscripts, and to questionings and 
disputes about canonics and higher criticism. 



108 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

These may all be important in their place; but 
he who handles aright the word of truth must 
look beyond the Bible to Him who gave the 
Bible. He must know the life and the light of 
the Word who was in the beginning with God 
and was God, and became flesh and dwelt among 
us. He must come into personal touch with 
the same life-giving source of inspiration which 
moved the prophets and apostles of old. His 
messages, accordingly, ought to have the tone 
and spirit of a voice out of heaven. But he will 
not presume to tell his people just how they 
must vote on the next election day. He will 
not undertake to keep them informed on the 
current events of the day Avhich the daily papers 
superabundantly supply. Nor will he study to 
be a kind of vocal substitute for the weekly 
paper, even though the paper be a "Christian 
Advocate." Nor will he invade the province of 
the monthly magazine and the stately review, 
and make the pulpit of God a reading desk for 
essays on questions of science and literature and 
historical research. But he is to be a public 
teacher of morals and religion. He has a divine 
right to speak and to be heard on questions 
which deeply affect the public weal. The conse- 
crated minister who knows his proper work, and 
proclaims the messages of heaven which come 
with a self-evident authority to the reason and 
conscience of mankind, is as worthy now as in 
the olden time to be called a prophet, an apostle, 



THE MINISTRY OP THE GOSPEL 100 

and a man of God. Like the Lord Jesus himself, 
he speaks with authority, and not as mimic 
scribes. 

I hear it said that the modern pulpit gives 
little attention to the exposition of the Scrip- 
tures. Judging from the run of pulpit topics 
announced in the Saturday papers, one might 
fairly infer that the complaint is true. What 
shall we think when we find in one city ten 
different preachers announcing to the world that 
on the following Lord's Day they will use the 
throne of their ministerial authority to instruct 
their people on the following ten themes? — 
"Voices of the Night/' "The Powers of Memory," 
"Dreams of Childhood," "A Death on the Ocean," 
"A Late Railroad Disaster/' "Borrowed Axes," 
"A Good House-Cleaning," "The Devil's Wash- 
tub," "Death in the Pot," "Let Her Drive." Now, 
it is quite possible, and, indeed, probable, that 
in connection with these announcements sermons 
of real value may have been preached; but I 
submit that the announcements are not adapted 
to exalt one's ideas of the work of a minister of 
Jesus Christ. There is some reason to fear that 
such advertisements drive thoughtful people 
from the churches rather than attract them. It 
is a matter of widespread observation and sorrow 
that so many intelligent and upright persons 
keep themselves away from church. The non- 
churchgoers seem to be in the majority. We 
cannot answer for all of them, but many of them 



110 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

will bluntly tell you that they left off going be- 
cause the average preacher gave them nothing 
worth going out to hear. 

III. Pastors 

But a complete ministry of the gospel demands 
still more than great preachers of the Word ; we 
want great pastors too. The heavenly Shepherd 
and Bishop of our souls commands, "Feed my 
lambs"; "Tend my flock." To the elders of the 
church of Ephesus, Paul says, "Take heed unto 
yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the 
Holy Spirit hath made you overseers, to feed 
the church of God which he purchased with his 
own blood." "Ye yourselves know," he adds, 
"how I shrank not from teaching you publicly 
and from house to house ; ... by the space of three 
years I ceased not to admonish every one night 
and day with tears." What shall we say to such 
commandments and examples? Great sensitive- 
ness has been felt in our Church over a sta- 
tistical report of decline in membership, and our 
bishops raise the bugle cry of "two million new 
converts" for the Church. And, surely, any 
symptom of decline ought to disturb us, and 
prompt to greater diligence; and we may pray 
and labor not only for two million but five mil- 
lion converts to Christ. But what disturbs me 
is that so much more is said about winning new 
converts than about taking care of those already 
in our fold. 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 111 

I incline to think that the most serious fault 
of the Methodist Church to-day is its notorious 
failure to hold fast that which is properly its 
own. Men and women go from us by thousands 
every year to swell the numbers of other 
churches, and we show little concern about it. 
The world knows that we know how to win souls 
to Christ. The Methodist Church has from the 
first been a revivalistic force in the world, but 
it has no corresponding reputation for holding 
the children of its honored families. It is also 
a notorious fact that within the last thirty years 
our most brilliant and promising young minis- 
ters have gone in hundreds to the pulpits of other 
denominations, while few comparatively have 
come over from other churches into ours. Some 
of our ministers have displayed far more zeal in 
pulling out the tares than in caring for the wheat. 
Every Conference in our Methodism has per- 
haps a number of ministers who are more famous 
for driving men out of the Church, and for tear- 
ing Churches to pieces, than for building up the 
kingdom of Christ. The children ask for bread 
and they give them stones. 

Do not infer from anything I have said that 
we have no great and thoroughgoing pastors. We 
have them in large numbers ; but they are never- 
theless too few. I have known many an inferior 
preacher more than make up for that defect by 
his superior wisdom in caring for the whole flock 
committed to his charge. And then what remark- 



112 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

able helps and living illustrations for sermons 
may be obtained by coming into close and fre- 
quent touch with the people and the various 
families! I asked a faithful pastor, "How are 
you able to make so many calls, and have time 
also for study and the preparation of your ser- 
mons?" His answer was simple: "Seven calls 
of an afternoon make but a pleasant and easy 
task, and three afternoons a week thus spent are 
sufficient to average a thousand pastoral visits 
in a year." 

IV. Fervency of Spirit 

The efficient preacher and pastor will also be 
known by the fervent spirit of his ministry. Paul 
called the Thessalonians to witness that his 
gospel came not unto them "in word only, but 
also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in 
much assurance." One may preach the Word 
mechanically by a dull, stupid, monotonous repe- 
tition of texts out of the Bible, and call that 
scriptural preaching. He may mechanically 
count the number of his pastoral calls, and 
report them to the Conference, when a cross- 
examination of his facts might show that half 
his visits were as unprofitable and as undesired 
as those of the common book agent at the homes 
of busy housekeepers. The spirit and manner 
of the man have everything to do with the effi- 
ciency of his work. If he is truly a public teacher 
of righteousness whom the people gladly hear; 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 113 

if he is a prophet of God, and more than a 
prophet, a faithful, sympathetic pastor, com- 
forter, and friend; if he have good sense and 
wisdom, and is at the same time tremendously 
in earnest, having power with God and with 
man, he will prove himself a power of God in 
the community. Such a consecrated personality, 
all aflame with the spirit and message of his 
Lord, must needs perform all the work of his 
ministry "with much assurance." Such a vigor- 
ous minister will surely kindle sacred fire in 
other hearts, and his continual prayer will be, 
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were 
prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit 
upon them!" 

When the apostle speaks of his gospel coming 
to the Thessalonians "in power, in the Holy 
Spirit, and in much assurance," he is not refer- 
ring to miraculous signs which accompanied his 
ministry. He wrought miracles and spoke with 
tongues more than others, but he put no stress 
upon such extraordinary signs and wonders. He 
appealed, rather, to the divine energy which 
characterized his preaching and to the manifest 
fullness of conviction and confidence in which 
he proclaimed his revelations of God and of 
Christ. "My speech and my preaching," he says 
to the Corinthians, "were not in persuasive 
words of man's wisdom," as if I were chiefly 
concerned with producing an elocutionary or 
rhetorical effect, "but in demonstration of the 



114 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

Spirit and of power." The cultivated and the 
unlearned people alike are very quick to discern 
whether a man speaks from deep, earnest, soul- 
moving convictions or a in word only." Even the 
professional actor on the stage will see to it 
that he impersonate with all power and assur- 
ance the character he comes forth to represent. 
How much more ought the real prophet of God's 
eternal truth to deliver his heavenly message 
with a full assurance of faith? That was a keen 
rebuke which the professional actor is said to 
have given a clergyman who asked him how he 
could rehearse fiction with a more marked effect 
than the preacher declared the gospel of truth. 
"I speak forth fiction," said the actor, "as if it 
were indeed the truth, while you declare the 
truth as if you thought it were only form and 
fiction." 

V. Diligence 
I must here add another quality which is es- 
sential to the able and efficient minister of 
Christ, namely, diligence in improving all oppor- 
tunities for usefulness. The apostle speaks in 
one place (Eph. 5. 16) of "redeeming the time," 
that is, buying up for oneself opportunities of 
doing good and of resisting the forces of evil 
times. It is remarkable how frequently Paul 
employs the word "diligence." Twenty times at 
least in his epistles he urges diligence in what- 
ever work one has to do. One of his peculiar 
expressions is "in diligence not slothful" (Rom. 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 115 

12. 11). An ecclesiastical vagabond is bad 
enough, but an ecclesiastical mope is even worse, 
for a vagrant may after a while take himself 
away, but a slothful, lazy mope takes so much 
time to turn himself once around that he makes 
his neighbors tired before it is possible to put 
him out of sight. How often do we hear ob- 
servant men of business say, "If I were as slow 
in getting around to my affairs as some ministers 
are in looking after theirs, I should soon have 
to close it out!" I know no better counsel on 
this point than that of the old Methodist Dis- 
cipline: "Be diligent. Never be unemployed. 
Never be triflingly employed. Never trifle away 
time; neither spend any more time at any place 
than is strictly necessary." He who conscien- 
tiously observes this rule will find ample time 
for study, and time for all his proper work. 
There is no class of men in the community so 
completely masters of their time as clergymen. 
Even the three or four hours a week of his public 
service, which are fixed by custom, are subject 
to such adjustments as will enable him to com- 
mand his days and weeks in ways that hard- 
worked business men might envy. I have known 
many laymen of refined taste and love for study 
who expressed a hope of accumulating sufficient 
fortune before old age came on them to enable 
them to devote their later years to reading and 
studies which they greatly loved. But the young 
minister should appreciate the fact that he has 



116 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

that good fortune from the very first. It is one 
of the compensations of his office and work. 
What others toil for years in hope of gaining he 
inherits from the start. I beseech you, young 
men, to appreciate your opportunities, and re- 
deem your time accordingly. "Give diligence to 
show thyself approved unto God, a workman 
that needeth not to be ashamed." "Be instant 
in season, out of season." John Wesley said, 
"The world is my parish." Dean Stanley said, 
"My parish is my world." See to it that your 
world and your parish know that you are "sted- 
fast, unmovable, always abounding in the work 
of the Lord." 

VI. Greatness and Grandeur of the Work 

And now, at last, I would fain impress upon 
you the greatness and the grandeur of this min- 
istry of Christ. To use again the words of the 
Ritual for ordination: "Have always printed in 
your remembrance how great a treasure is com- 
mitted to your charge. That is, to be messen- 
gers, watchmen, and stewards of the Lord; to 
teach and to premonish, to feed and provide for, 
the Lord's family ; to gather the outcasts, to seek 
the lost, and to be ever ready to spread abroad 
the gospel, the glad tidings of reconciliation with 
God." All this is doing the holy work of God, 
and he that is greatest in the kingdom of heaven 
is he that is most truly the servant of all. 

We sometimes hear the ignorant, unstable, ami 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 117 

morbid people asking, Why is it that miracles 
have ceased in the modern Church? And when 
we answer that God has provided better things 
for us, they stare in blank astonishment, not 
knowing the Scriptures nor "the powers of the 
world to come." Some point us to certain 
modern "faith cures," and cry "Lo here! and lo 
there!" The healing of some bodily ailment is 
reckoned far above the divine healing of a sin- 
sick soul. Not so thought Jesus Christ and Paul. 
Our Lord wrought many signs and wonders, it 
is true; but he most positively taught his dis- 
ciples that they should "do greater things than 
these." With an air of sadness and pity over 
human frailty he sighed, "Except ye see signs 
and wonders, ye will not believe." "A wicked 
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." 
When his disciples returned from their mission 
and rejoiced that they had been able to work 
miracles, and that demons were subject unto 
them in his name, he said to them, "Rejoice 
rather that your names are written in heaven." 
With infinite condescension he showed his hands 
and his side to the unbelieving Thomas, but he 
added the memorable admonition, "Blessed are 
they that have not seen and yet have believed." 

I look upon it as a great misfortune and a 
real hindrance to the promotion of a pure gospel 
in the world that so many religious people per- 
sist in magnifying any marvelous physical 
phenomena above the spiritual things of God. 



118 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

They would apparently be willing to crucify the 
Lord afresh every day if only they could see 
him come down from the cross and confound a 
gaping crowd. Their highest idea of prophesy- 
ing is that of fortune-telling, a literal prediction 
of future events, or a blindfolding of a man like 
Jesus and then smiting him and asking, 
"Prophesy, who is he that struck thee?" They 
cannot comprehend even the old proverb, "He 
that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he 
that taketh a city." Still less can they under- 
stand Paul's estimate of "the greater gifts" 
(1 Cor. 12. 31), and his declaration, "Though I 
speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 
and have the gift of prophecy, and know all 
mysteries, and all knowledge ; and though I have 
all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have 
not love, I am nothing." The true minister of 
the gospel of Jesus should correct such mistaken 
notions, and make it known that he who converts 
one sinner from the error of his ways, and so 
saves a soul from death, does a far mightier 
work than he who cures a chronic liver trouble 
or mends a broken bone. Be not afraid of them 
that kill the body, but are not able to harm the 
soul; neither be ye misled by them that would 
exalt the healing of the body above the saving 
of the soul from guilt. Great and wonderful 
would be the miracle of bringing a dead body 
back again to life, but mightier and more far- 
reaching is that work of God Avhich enables a 



THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL 119 

man like Paul to say, "The law of the Spirit of 
life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law 
of sin and of death." The powerful ministry 
of men like John Knox, John Wesley, William 
Carey, and James M. Thoburn, a ministry which 
upheaves old superstitions and turns the tides 
of human civilization, is worth more in the sight 
of God than all the prodigies of sorcerers and 
magicians. The patience and the prayers and 
the sacrifices of the missionaries of Christ in 
China for half a century past have undermined 
the foundations of that ancient empire, and il- 
lustrate and confirm the words of Jesus, "I came 
not to send peace on earth, but a sword." The 
martyr spirit has not ceased, but is mighty in 
the world to-day, and will continue in the face 
of persecution and death to go into all the world 
and preach the gospel to every creature. 

Know, then, brethren, the real greatness and 
glory of your heavenly calling. It may seem 
to some absurd to say that any modern minister 
of Christ is to be reckoned greater than Moses 
and Elijah and Isaiah and all the Old Testament 
prophets, but that is the plain import of the 
words of Jesus when he assured the multitude 
that "the least in the kingdom of heaven is 
greater" than John the Baptist. He declared 
that John was more than any ordinary prophet; 
nay, up to that date there had not arisen a 
greater than John the Baptist. But with all his 
greatness, he was shut up within Jewish limit a- 



120 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

tions, and was gifted with little spiritual insight 
into the mysteries of the kingdom of God. One 
of Christ's little ones is greater than that greatest 
of pre-Christian prophets. And I commend this 
thought to those who vaguely ask why miracles 
have ceased, and how a Christian preacher can 
be greater than an Old Testament prophet. Any 
and every disciple of Christ should rejoice with 
joy unspeakable that to him it is given to know 
what the old prophets searched diligently but 
in vain to find, and what even angels desire to 
look into (1 Pet. 1. 10-12) . O man of God, friend 
of Jesus, called and anointed by the Holy Spirit 
sent down from heaven, thou that art greater 
than the prophets of old, and of deeper vision 
than the angels, what a responsibility is thine ! 

It is the business and the aim of Garrett 
Biblical Institute to cultivate the noblest ideal 
of the minister's vocation. It is not our province 
to supply instruction in those studies which are 
commonly taught in other schools. We have no 
good right or reason to exist as a substitute for 
the academy and the college of liberal arts. Our 
proper work is, rather, to receive the graduate 
from college and to inspire his life with most 
exalted conceptions of what a minister of Christ 
should be. Our churches call for able ministers 
of the New Testament, trained theologians, 
scholarly men, thoroughly rooted and grounded 
in the eternal verities of our holy religion. They 
ask for men of God to be their pastors and 



THE MINISTKY OF THE GOSPEL 121 

teachers; they want true apostles of Jesus 
Christ, divinely called and gifted with power 
from on high, apt to teach, faithful shepherds 
of the people whom they can both love and 
honor ; ministers of holy mysteries, who are also 
lights in the world ; consecrated servants of God 
and the Church, whose ever-burning question is, 
not what shall I get, but what can I do for the 
kingdom of the Lord Christ? Such ministers 
must be pure in heart, that they may see God. 
They must hold and make known the mystery of 
the faith in a pure conscience. Ample fields and 
glorious are waiting for such ministers of truth, 
and they are already white unto harvest. Know, 
then, your calling, brethren, and walk worthily 
of it. I charge you in the sight of God, and of 
Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the 
dead, preach the Word, and give all diligence to 
present yourselves approved unto God, workmen 
that need not be ashamed. 



VI 
GOD KEVEALED IN JESUS CHKIST 1 

No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten 
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared 
him. — John 1. 18. 

There have been many and various attempts 
to prove the existence of God. Perhaps the 
most popular of these arguments is the one which 
essays to demonstrate the wisdom and the good- 
ness of the Creator from apparent evidences of 
design in the natural world. William Paley 
more than a hundred years ago gave great cur- 
rency to this form of argument. He found in 
nature what he believed to be trustworthy evi- 
dences of the existence and attributes of the 
Deity. He argued, with no little show of reason, 
that the finding of a watch upon the ground, 
and observing that its parts were obviously put 
together for a purpose, would produce a very 
different impression on one's mind from that pro- 
duced by looking at a stone. He insisted that 
the evidences of design would not be weakened 
by supposing that the finder of the watch had 
never seen the like before, or known anything 
about a maker of watches. And he further 
argued that if the watch sometimes went wrong, 

1 Preached in the First Methodist Church, Evanston, at the Commence- 
ment of the College of liberal Arts, Northwestern University, June 9, 1895. 

122 



GOD KEVEALED IX CHRIST 123 

and seldom went exactly right, and though it 
contained a number of parts of which he could 
discern no purpose, his argument would not be 
invalidated. That illustration has been for gen- 
erations a commonplace of natural theology. If 
such a piece of human workmanship proves the 
existence of a designing mind as its creator, how 
much more does the wonderful mechanism of 
the natural world prove the existence of God ! 

But this old argument has been challenged 
in these later days. It is replied that we know 
so much about watches and their makers that 
it is not allowable for us to say what proofs 
of design the first examination of a watch would 
have for a mind utterly destitute of our knowl- 
edge. The untutored savage might regard it as 
a fetish, and reverence it as a thing of life; but 
to him it would disclose no more ideas of pur- 
pose than one of the hundred curious shells which 
he finds upon the ocean shore, and hangs in 
ornamental chains about his neck. 

The "design-argument" also refers us to the 
vegetable world, and shows how certain plants 
and trees have been adapted to cold climates, 
and others only to a torrid zone. It points us 
also to the animal kingdom, and shows the ob- 
vious purpose of bones and muscles — of eye, ear, 
hand, foot, and wing. Paley spoke with great 
assurance of the divine wisdom displayed in the 
stomach of the camel, the tongue of the wood- 
pecker, and the crooked teeth of the babiroussa. 



124 BACCALAUREATE SERMOXS 

But disciples of Darwin presume to overthrow 
all these detailed arguments by a theory of evo- 
lution which accounts for all the curious and 
wonderful formations of nature by showing them 
to be the necessary results of a long series of 
antecedent causes. There has been for millions 
of years a struggle for life. Laws of natural 
selection and the survival of the fittest show how 
lower orders of life have been displaced and 
superseded by higher ones. Eyes were indeed 
brought into existence and used for purposes of 
seeing, and ears for hearing, and horns for self- 
defense, and teeth for mastication; but, it is 
maintained, they were all alike developed and 
brought into use by the necessities of a nature 
struggling to hold its own. What have been 
claimed as evidences of wise and merciful de- 
sign are rather the natural and necessary result 
of laws and forces still at work in all the realm 
of being. 

The argument is thus turned over into another 
line of thought, and we are brought to face the 
question of causation. It was said by the older 
writers that if one watch could produce another 
like itself, the design-argument would be greatly 
strengthened. But this is seen to be a common 
fact in the world of living things. Biology shows 
us mechanisms in nature unspeakably more 
wonderful than any piece of human workman- 
ship, and also capable of self-propagation. 

The atheist accepts the doctrine of causation. 



GOD KEVEALED IN CHRIST 125 

He holds as truly as the theist that all the forma- 
tions of nature must have some adequate cause ; 
but he presumes to find a sufficient explanation 
of all phenomena in certain qualities and opera- 
tions of matter and force, and he supposes that 
these have either been forever working or are 
the products of "spontaneous generation." 

The agnostic evolutionist admits, as a demand 
of reason, that the beginning of all evolution 
must have had a cause, but to that sufficient 
"first cause" he denies intelligence and person- 
ality. He declares that the great First Cause 
is unknowable. The theist maintains that the 
only sufficient ground and reason of all things 
that exist is a personal God. 

Here, now, are the great issues, and how are 
we to determine what is the truth? Many facts 
in nature are pointed out as bearing evidences 
of beneficent design ; but other facts, equally con- 
spicuous, look more like contrivances of horrible 
malevolence. Look at the animal world as it 
has been struggling for life through uncounted 
ages. Where is the goodness or the wisdom of 
an Almighty Creator who deliberately planned 
the terrors and torments and deaths which have 
been going on for millions of years? Look at 
those sharp claws, those poisonous fangs, those 
crushing jaws, and tell me what you can see 
in them that looks like evidences of benevolence ! 
We have been pointed to the millions of little 
fishes, that seem forever sporting in the waters, 



126 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

and so happy that they do not know what to do 
with themselves ; but if you will watch them long 
enough, you will discover shoals of larger fishes 
that act as if they were made only to gulp the 
little fishes down. And then those larger ones 
become in turn the prey of others greater than 
themselves, and these, again, are terrorized and 
crushed by huger monsters "that swim the ocean- 
stream." The great shark and the furious lion 
may, indeed, experience exquisite delight as they 
craunch the yielding bones and the quivering 
flesh of their prey; but what about the victims? 
And remember that such a reign of terror has 
been going on for ages of ages. Do you call this 
beneficence? Are these the evidences of divine 
goodness? Nay, some will rather ask, "What 
infinite gorilla planned these millenniums of 
agony and death?" 

Is it any wonder if, amid such conflicts of 
thought, we become pessimistic? Is it strange 
that some devout and thoughtful minds have be- 
come unsettled? Some cry out in wild unrest, 
"O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and 
unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this 
world!" Others are filled with unquenchable de- 
sire to know the reason of things, and at times 
exclaim, "O that some one had some time seen 
God!" 

I am sure that I speak for many when I say 
that I desire above all things to know the rea- 
son, or purpose, of the world of which I am a 



GOD KEVEALED IN CHRIST 127 

part. I possess what seems like an intuition 
of God, but I cannot be satisfied with a faith 
that is ever hampered with scientific doubt, nor 
can I trust a science that is ever at war with 
my religious instincts. I seem to stand in the 
midst of shadows. I look out into the mist- 
wrapped ocean of being and ask, What am I, 
and whence this world around me? To the 
heavens above and to the earth beneath I cry out 
for knowledge, but no answer comes. O earth, 
O world, O universe ! Is there anything in you 
that I can know? 

The tangible objects of the world we may, 
indeed, investigate. We discover forces and laws 
and movements on Avhich scientific investiga- 
tion has much to say. We are thankful for all 
that such research has brought within the field 
of human knowledge, but no discoveries in 
physical research go far to satisfy the deep ques- 
tions of the heart. 

Should we not look elsewhere for answers to 
these persistent questions of the thinking spirit 
within us? Let me suggest that on questions 
touching the unseen and eternal we shall find 
out little by microscope or by telescope. We 
shall do better to study awhile the nature of 
the thinking soul within us ; that we have always 
close at hand. What is there that, of all things 
in the universe, is most certain and unquestion- 
able to the human mind? What is there that 
ice know, and know so surely that there is no 



128 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

room for rational doubt or question? Is it not 
our own self-conscious being? No more primary 
or unquestionable conviction can be expressed 
than that of our own individual, self-conscious 
personality. The deepest truth the individual 
heart can know is told in the simple words, I am. 
This fact is not a matter of argument, or of 
proof; it is the primary intuition of the human 
soul. Here we have certainty. If anyone say, 
"I don't know whether I am or not," we must 
leave him to his insanity. The surest things 
are those within our own consciousness. Not 
in the stellar depths afar, not in the realm of 
matter anywhere, but in the personal human 
spirit we shall obtain our best concept of God. 
It is an intuitive conviction, beyond which noth- 
ing simpler or surer can be known. Search the 
wide world over, and you find no visible object 
superior to man. The greatest thing in the uni- 
verse is personality. 

Personality implies a self-conscious, intelligent 
being. All our knowledge, all the categories of 
thought must necessarily pass through the door- 
way of our personality. Our ideas of time and 
space, cause and effect, matter and force, law 
and freedom, are utterly meaningless except as 
correlations of our conscious personality. "Per- 
sonality," says a distinguished philosopher, 
"comprises all that we know of that which 
exists; relation to personality comprises all 
we know of that which seems to exist. And 



GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST 129 

when from the little world of man's conscious- 
ness we would lift up our eyes to the inex- 
haustible universe beyond, and ask to whom 
all this is related, the highest existence is still 
the highest personality; and the source of all 
being reveals himself by his name, I AM" 
(Mansel, Bampton Lectures, III). 

The first great thought presented in our text 
is the unique personality of Jesus Christ, a the 
only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the 
Father." How can we better define and illus- 
trate personality than by means of a notable 
person? Many remarkable persons have made 
their impress on the world. Characters like 
Homer and Zoroaster, though dimly traditional, 
perpetually influence the thoughts of men. Con- 
fucius and Sakya-Mouni can never be forgotten. 
Mohammed, Napoleon, and Shakespeare, each in 
a remarkably different way, have stamped their 
personal impress on millions of human beings. 
The personality of Socrates abides with us as a 
peculiar power. Whether Xenophon or Plato 
represent him ; whether we think of him as talk- 
ing with his disciples or drinking the fatal hem- 
lock, he is ever the great sophist, the cool, re- 
served, calculating philosopher — a master mind. 

Let us acknowledge that all these were sons 
of God, and the distinctive personality of each 
was in some measure a revelation of the ever- 
lasting Father. But honest thought compels us 
to affirm that Jesus Christ impresses men as a 



130 BACCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

personality absolutely unique, and one that 
transcends immeasurably all tbe great names of 
history. I do not now appeal to the miraculous 
element in the traditions of his life. A number 
of facts universally admitted differentiate Jesus 
of Nazareth from all other men. He was born 
and reared in obscure poverty. He claimed no 
relationship and sought no collusion with the 
great and mighty. He was known as the car- 
penter's son, and had his home in the despised 
city of Nazareth. He was thirty years old when 
he began his public ministry, and was ignomin- 
iously crucified about three years thereafter. He 
chose for his disciples a feAV Galilaean fisher- 
men and others of no higher rank. He mingled 
with publicans and sinners, and refused to em- 
ploy the means of power, usually regarded as 
essential to success. And yet that Jewish youth, 
cut off in ignominy after only two or three years 
of public life, has impressed his personality on 
the thought of the world as has no other name. 

When, now, to the facts already mentioned we 
add the purity of his life, the majesty of his 
doctrine, the authority of his word, his mighty 
works of healing, and the final sacrifice of his 
own life and his taking it up again, there rises 
up before us a personality so adorable that we 
are quite ready to allow him the title of "only 
begotten Son of God." Here is one who presents 
himself as a divine-human personality, and who 
promises to reveal to us the nature and attributes 



Vi 



GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST 131 

of Him who gave his name to Moses as " I Am 
that I Am." 

It is, perhaps, worthy of passing remark that, 
instead of the words "only begotten Son," as 
written in our text, many very ancient author- 
ities read "God only begotten, who is in the 
bosom of the Father." This reading appears in 
the margin of the Revised Version of the New 
Testament. Either reading, however, presents 
to us an ideal which we do well to study. What 
explanation can be given for the exceptional and 
adorable character of the person of Christ? 

Other explanations may be given, but I shall 
endeavor to show that in the personality of Jesus 
Christ we have a matchless exhibition of wisdom 
and power and love. "No man has ever yet seen 
God." He "dwelleth in light unapproachable, 
whom no man hath seen or can see." Nor are 
we to suppose that his nature and attributes can 
be comprehended by any finite mind. But, ac- 
cording to our Scripture, he has revealed himself 
to men through his only begotten Son. His di- 
vine nature and attributes, so far as we may 
know them, may be summed up in the three 
words — Intelligence, Power, Love. 

I. Christ is a Manifestation of the Wisdom 
of God 
The beginning of John's Gospel is a remark- 
able statement of this truth: "In the beginning 
was the Word, and the Word was with God, 



132 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

and the Word was God. And the Word be- 
came flesh, and dwelt among ns and we beheld 
his glory, the glory as of an only begotten from 
a Father, full of grace and truth." Some 
measure of the significance of this may be in- 
ferred from that passage in the book of Proverbs 
(8. 22), where Wisdom speaks as a Person and 
says : "The Lord possessed me in the beginning 
of his way, before his works of old. I was set 
up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever 
the earth was. . . . When he established the 
heavens I was there. When he gave to the sea 
its bound, when he marked out the foundations 
of the earth, then I was by him as a master 
workman ; and I was daily his delight." This is 
but a poetical version of the statement of John 
that the Word was in the beginning with God. 
When it is added that "the Word became flesh 
and dwelt among us," we are virtually told that 
the incarnate Christ was a personal manifesta- 
tion of the wisdom of God, and our first great 
lesson is that the eternal Cause of all phenomena 
is a Person of infinite intelligence. 

It is an error, I think, to maintain that the 
incarnate Christ was omniscient. It is written 
that Jesus "increased in wisdom" ( Luke 2. 52 ) . 
He himself declared on one occasion that there 
were some things he did not know ( Mark 13. 32 ) . 
Nevertheless, we maintain that this Son of God 
and Son of man is the highest exponent of the 
wisdom of God which the world has ever seen. 



GOD EEVEALED IN CHKIST 133 

One need not be omniscient in order to reveal 
qualities of a wisdom that passeth human under- 
standing. A few facts in the life of Jesus will 
illustrate what we mean. He spoke of "the wis- 
dom of Solomon," which had so greatly aston- 
ished the Queen of Sheba, and then he made bold 
to say, "A greater than Solomon is here." The 
knowledge of heavenly things which Jesus 
evinced before Nicodemus is superior to any- 
thing in the writings of Plato or the maxims of 
Confucius, and well might that ruler of the Jews 
say, "We know that thou art a teacher come 
from God: for no man can do these signs that 
thou doest, except God be with him." Over and 
over again is it written that Jesus knew the 
thoughts of those about him. He convinced the 
woman of Samaria that he could tell her all 
things that ever she did. When Nathanael heard 
him say, "Before that Philip called thee, when 
thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee," he 
cried out in great emotion, "Eabbi, thou art the 
Son of God; thou art the King of Israel." 

Paul speaks of Christ as "the wisdom of God." 
He writes to the Colossians of being "knit to- 
gether in love, and unto all riches of the full 
assurance of understanding, that they may know 
the mystery of God, even Christ, in whom are 
hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
edge." 

When the psalmist contemplated the wonder- 
ful works of God in the visible creation he ex- 



134 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

claimed, "In wisdom hast thou made them all." 
The New Testament writers also teach that all 
things were made by the word and wisdom of 
God, as embodied in the "Son of his love, who is 
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of 
all creation; for in him were all things created 
in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible 
and things invisible ... He is before all things 
and by him all things consist." 

But more overwhelming than the intelligence 
by which the worlds were made is the concept 
of that heavenly wisdom which was manifested 
in what the apostle calls "the mystery of godli- 
ness." If it was "great to speak a world from 
naught, 'twas greater to redeem," and Paul 
speaks of the redemption of the world in Christ 
as "God's wisdom in a mystery, even the hidden 
wisdom, which God foreordained before the 
worlds unto our glory." And when, in the 
Epistle to the Romans, this apostle approaches 
the conclusion of his high argument, he cries out 
in a rapture of holy feeling, "O the depth of the 
riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of 
God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and 
his ways past finding out!" 

Anyone familiar with the Scriptures knows 
how extensively this line of thought might be 
enlarged. But I only observe that, if such depths 
of wisdom and knowledge appear in Christ, the 
God whom he reveals must be the perfection of 
wisdom. If such intelligence shines out from 



GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST 135 

the personality of the only begotten Son, how 
infinite must be the intelligence of the everlast- 
ing Father! 

II. Christ is a Manifestation of the Power 
of God 

Our common notions of power are largely 
governed by displays of force in the physical 
world. The thunderbolt or the earthquake that 
tears the mountains asunder, the rushing flood 
that bears down all before it, the triumphant 
host that annihilates cities and empires — these 
are often thought of as highest conceptions of 
power. But these are not Christly manifesta- 
tions of the power of God. It is written that 
of old, when Elijah stood upon the mount, and 
a the Lord passed by, and a great and strong 
wind rent the mountains ; but the Lord was not in 
the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; 
but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and 
after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was 
not in the fire: and after the fire a still small 
voice." It is also written that God's dominion 
is maintained "not by might nor by power"; 
that is, not by martial forces, nor physical 
strength, "but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of 
hosts." 

A study of the mighty works of Jesus Christ 
shows that they were not so much an exhibition of 
his power over matter as of his dominion over the 
spiritual world. John the Baptist proclaimed: 



136 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

"He that cometh after me is mightier than I ; he 
shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with 
fire; he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing- 
floor, and he will gather his wheat into the garner, 
but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable 
fire." This is a kind of power that men too 
lightly value. "The power of the Spirit" is the 
element and means whereby Jesus wrought his 
mighty works. He assumed "power on earth to 
forgive sins." The power that moves the heart, 
convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judg- 
ment; regenerates the moral life, and illumines 
the soul with divine glory — "the power of God 
unto salvation to every one that belie veth" — that 
is preeminently the power of God as revealed in 
Jesus Christ. What consciousness of super- 
human power in him who says : "I lay down my 
life that I may take it again. No one taketh 
it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. 
I have power to lay it down and I have power 
to take it again." After his resurrection he de- 
clared, "All authority has been given unto me 
in heaven and on earth," and hence it is emi- 
nently proper for us to "honor the Son even 
as we honor the Father," and say unto him, 
"Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the 
glory." 

I refrain from further elaboration of this line 
of thought, which is very rich in scriptural 
illustrations, and I pass to speak more fully, in 
the third place, of 



GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST 137 

III. Christ as the Manifestation of the 
Love of God 

I ask particular attention to the tender feeling 
expressed in the words "only begotten Son, who 
is in the bosom of the Father." How much 
these words connote ! They suggest a great deal 
more than wisdom and power. One may truly 
say : "In God there abideth these three : wisdom 
and power and love ; but the greatest of these is 
love." Wisdom may be displayed in the works 
of nature ; power is manifested in the wonderful 
activities of mind and spirit; but love can be 
known only through the emotions of a human 
heart. When we see and hear one crying out, 
"My father, my father!" or "My son, my son!" 
we witness the revelation of the passion of love, 
a passion most divine. 

Let us weigh well these matchless words — 
"Son"; "only begotten Son"; "Father"; "bosom 
of the Father." They are terms of holiest affec- 
tion, and the thought of an only begotten Son 
abiding in the bosom of an eternal Father is 
the profounclest concept of a "love divine, all 
loves excelling." Add to this the sayings : "God 
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not 
perish, but have eternal life." "Greater love hath 
no man than this, that a man lay down his life 
for his friends." "Scarcely for a righteous man 
will one die; for a good man some would even 



138 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

dare to die. But God commendeth his love 
toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for us." "Herein is love, not that 
we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his 
Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God is 
love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in 
God, and God dwelleth in him." "No man hath 
seen God at any time ; but if we love one another, 
God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in 
us." 

But is love in God a passion, as it is in us? Has 
he an emotional nature, susceptible of feeling 
grief and pity? We know that human love some- 
times shows itself in the outburst of excessive 
sorrow. David "went up to the chamber over 
the gate and wept : and said, O my son Absalom, 
would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my 
son, my son!" Such tender passion has been 
supposed to be incompatible with the nature of 
God. But why should we presume to set up 
such a dogma? We cannot, of course, suppose 
physical pain in a Being who is purely spirit; 
but the notion that a pure spirit must be in- 
capable of emotions of pity and tenderness is 
based upon a false assumption. We may rather 
say that for God to be destitute of emotions of 
tender feeling would be ascribing to him most 
serious imperfection. If we look for creatures 
least susceptible of pain, we naturally search 
among clams and oysters rather than among the 
angels. The higher we ascend in the scale of 



GOD KEVEALED IN CHRIST 139 

being, the more delicate do we find the loftier 
natures. Why, then, be slow of heart to believe 
that the passion of love, involving the highest 
possible conceptions of tenderness, pity, and 
sympathy, exists in greatest perfection in the 
bosom of the eternal Father? Love in God, as 
truly as love in Christ and in every human 
heart, is a holy passion, a tender and beautiful 
affection. "His soul was grieved for the miseries 
of Israel." He cried by the mouth of his holy 
prophet, "How shall I give thee up, O Ephraim ! 
My heart is turned within me, my compassions 
are kindled together." And when Jesus wept 
over Jerusalem, and said, "How oft would I have 
gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
gathers her brood under her wings," he was but 
manifesting the feeling of his Father for that 
same Jerusalem. 

Too long have we stood like Philip, saying, 
"Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." Hear 
the Only Begotten say, "He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father." Hear him also pray: 
"Holy Father, keep them in thy name whom 
thou hast given me, that they may be one, even 
as we are ... I in them and thou in me, that 
they may be perfected into one; that the world 
may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst 
them even as thou lovedst me." Well then may 
we take up the songful prayer, 

Jesus, Lover of my soul, 
Let me to thy bosom fly; 



140 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

for to be taken to his bosom is also to be enfolded 
in the bosom of his Father and our Father, of 
his God and our God. 

Perhaps our highest ideal of pure self-sacrific- 
ing love comes from our knowledge of a mother's 
heart. 

There are teachings in earth, and sky, and air; 
The heavens the glory of God declare; 
But louder than voice beneath or above, 
He is heard to speak through a mother's love. 

That faithful son, that dutiful daughter, who 
is away from home, and yet knows that every 
day and every night a mother's heart is yearning 
after them in deathless affection, may in that 
knowledge get a glimpse of God. 

There comes to my remembrance now — how 
dreamlike through the mist of years! — a little 
cradle that rocked eleven children in one home. 
It was an heirloom of three generations. More 
than one of those children could tell of a lovely 
face that watched over that cradle many a long 
and weary night, and sang sweet lullabies to 
soothe her darling. Frail nature sometimes 
forced her rights, and fitful sleep would over- 
come the anxious watcher for a little while; 
but no medicine could soothe the little sufferer 
in the cradle like the magic of that mother's 
voice, and never was a singer so persistently 
encored ! 

I have heard of a father, whose dissipated 
son said to him one day : "Father, I am helpless 



GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST 141 

in the presence of this temptation except when 
you are with me. If I could always have you at 
my side, I would not fall." And that father, 
moved with Christly affection, gave up his busi- 
ness, and devoted all his attention to his helpless 
boy. By day and by night he kept up his tire- 
less vigil, and accepted it all as a labor of love. 
O friends, if such pure love reigns in a mother's 
and in a father's heart, what must be the love 
of God, which passeth understanding! What 
affection must abide in the bosom of the ever- 
lasting Father! 

I have seen many ideals of the Christ in art. 
Even the Christ-child, as held in the arms of the 
Sistine Madonna at Dresden, captivates us as 
with the spell of a mysterious enchanter; and 
Raphael's painting of the transfigured Christ is 
full of suggestions of the supernatural. Rubens's 
masterpiece at Antwerp, exhibiting only the life- 
less body of Jesus as taken from the cross, im- 
presses with a feeling that can never be forgotten. 
Thorwaldsen's sculptured figure of the Christ 
reveals a face of indescribable tenderness, and 
an attitude that bids one welcome to his arms. 
But no picture of the Lord Jesus has made on 
me a deeper impression than Holman Hunt's 
"Light of the World." There it stands, in the 
library of Keble College, Oxford. It exhibits 
no display of supernatural power. It is a very 
human face. The eyes beam with the light of 
tenderest affection. The Saviour holds a lantern 



142 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

in his hand, and is standing and knocking at a 
door that seems to have been long unopened. 
The flickering light shows fallen, scattered, 
wasted fruit upon the ground, and vines that 
have crept up the door and partly covered the 
rusted hinges. His knocking is obviously the 
gentle touch of a loving friend, not the loud rap 
of the rough policeman, coming to arrest a crim- 
inal. The entire picture is an art-creation, de- 
signed to body forth the Saviour's words: "Be- 
hold, I stand at the door and knock ; if any man 
hear my voice, and open the door, I will come 
in to him, and will sup with him, and he with 
me." And thus we attain our highest concept 
of God. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ is love. 

I do not find this doctrine in other systems of 
religion. Pantheism has no place for the essen- 
tial personality of love. Peoples of many other 
faiths fear God. They worship in many forms, 
and offer many a smoking sacrifice. But their 
highest ideal of God is that of a dread Sovereign, 
who reigns in supernal loneliness. They do 
not think of him as loving little children. But 
Jesus shows his Father's love by taking little 
children in his arms and blessing them. He 
teaches us to say, "Our Father who art in 
heaven." 

Once knowing God in the personality of Jesus 
Christ, the mysteries of being no longer vex my 
soul. I am content to dwell in the midst of 



GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST 143 

what I can know only in part. Assured that 
the invisible God is "in all, and through all, and 
over all," I take it for granted that his ways 
must be past finding out. But I no longer think 
of him as haying created a great mass of stuff 
called "matter," and spread it out through space, 
heaping up bigger piles in some places than in 
others, while he keeps himself above and apart 
from it all, as if living far away in some unknown 
infinite outside! No, no! God is very near to 
every one of us. "In him we live and move and 
have our being." "He upholdeth all things by 
the word of his power," and with the innumer- 
able hosts of heaven and earth we say: "Unto 
him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the 
Lamb, be blessing, and honor, and wisdom, and 
power, and glory forever." For "the Lamb, who 
is in the midst of the throne," is also "the only 
begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father." 
As the ages come and go he opens the books of 
divine mysteries and looses the seven seals 
thereof. He has revealed God, the Father Al- 
mighty, and in his divine and human personality 
has shown us our highest ideals of wisdom, 
power, and love. 

Members of the graduating class : In the usual 
formality of a direct address to you, I exhort 
you to a life-long study of the personality of 
Jesus Christ. Some of you may have been per- 
plexed with the mysteries of life. You may at 
times have yielded to doubts and queries touch- 



144 BACCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

ing the wisdom of God. Perhaps the simple 
prayer of faith, learned at your mother's knee, 
seems useless now. Perchance you have some- 
times said to your soul, "If I could only see God, 
I would believe." 

1. It is painful to think that the study of 
nature, supposed to contain so many proofs of 
the wisdom and goodness of God, should prove 
to be for anyone a pathway to skepticism, to 
atheism, or even to agnosticism. My counsel 
to anyone thus troubled is to "Seek first the 
kingdom of God and his righteousness." Begin 
with the study of your own personality. Any 
human being, however degraded, is unspeakably 
higher than the highest type of animals, which 
have no conscience and no reasoning soul. Noth- 
ing can be so real to us as ourself . All the forms 
and forces of nature are subordinate to person- 
ality. They may exhibit many marks of 
excellency, but for the surest proofs of God you 
will look in vain in the realm of matter. Look 
not for the living among the dead. Why stop 
with that which appears highest and best in 
material forms, when far above them all you 
may clearly see a thing so godlike as living, self- 
conscious, rational and affectionate personality 
in beings who are called "the offspring of God"? 

2. I point you to that unique and adorable 
Personality, whose wisdom and power and love 
I have tried to set forth as revelations of the 
attributes of God. Jesus Christ is presented to 



GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST 145 

you as the incarnation and best revelation of 
the "Power that is back of all phenomena." 
Other saintly sons of God are also in their 
measure revelations of the same great Father. 
The light that shines in the "only begotten Son" 
is also "the true Light which lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world." Did Enoch 
walk with God, and become so intimate that 
he at last was taken up into the bosom of the 
Invisible? Did Elijah enjoy such fellowship 
with the heavens that they opened to receive 
him in chariots of fire, and rank him with the 
holy Cherubim? These are but symbols of the 
glory which every son of God shall share when 
he is received into the bosom of his heavenly 
Father. 

3; Finally, let me admonish you that the 
highest law in the universe is that of love. Our 
God is love. The manifestation of Christ is 
altogether an object lesson of divine compassion. 
The first and great commandment is, "Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." And 
the second is like it : "Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself." As you go forth into the great 
world you will nowhere find any visible objects 
greater than your fellow men. See to it that 
in every living human soul you recognize the 
image of your Father, and do unto every one of 
them as you would have them do unto you. 
Though you should know all mysteries, and 
possess all knowledge, and have a faitji that 



146 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

I 
could remove mountains, and have not love, you 

are nothing. Great is wisdom; great are faith 
and hope; there are many great things — but the 
greatest of all is love. 

As you go out from the associations of your 
student life, and take your places amid the mani- 
fold mysteries of being, you can carry with you 
no more inspiring thought than that you are at 
your best only when conscious of being sons 
and daughters of the Lord Almighty. This 
noblest boon of human attainment comes to us 
only in loving fellowship with our Elder Brother, 
the Christ of God, who is the only begotten from 
the Father, and is made unto us wisdom and 
power and love. 



VII 

THE ESOTERIC ELEMENT IN THE 
WRITINGS OF JOHN 1 

The writings of John can hardly be said to 
occupy a secondary place in the New Testament. 
They consist of the fourth Gospel, three epistles, 
and the Apocalypse. The common tradition and 
belief ascribe all these books to John, the son of 
Zebedee, the disciple and apostle of Jesus. But 
it is proper that I should at least observe in 
passing on to my special theme that two other 
opinions are also held touching the authorship 
of the Johannine writings. One is that John the 
apostle was the author of the Apocalypse, but 
not of the Gospel and the three epistles; while 
others maintain that the apostle was the author 
of the Gospel and the epistles, but not of the 
Apocalypse. It is not important for my pur- 
pose to discuss any of these critical questions 
here. Whoever the author, and whatever the 
date and occasion of their composition, these 
writings have an imperishable value, and are 
worthy of most careful study for their own sake. 
This time and place will, however, permit me to 
discuss only a small portion of the Johannine 



*First read by request before the Chicago Esoteric Society, and afterward 
repeated before an assembly for biblical study at Ocean Grove, New Jersey. 

147 



148 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

writings, and I shall confine myself mainly to 
the Gospel, and assume the truthfulness of all 
ancient testimony, and the soundness of the 
prevalent modern criticism, that the fourth 
Gospel is the work of the apostle who is so often 
referred to as the beloved disciple. 

The fourth Gospel is remarkable for its 
numerous esoteric formulas of speech, its occult 
depths of thought, its theosophic point of view, 
its mystic tone and style. 1 What profound sug- 
gestions attach to such words and statements 
as "the Word," "the Life/' "the Light," "born 
of water and of the Spirit," "the water that I 
give shall become in him a well of water spring- 
ing up unto eternal life," "I am the bread of 
life," "eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink 
his blood," "I am the way, and the truth, and 
the life"; "He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father." It is this notable spiritual mysticism 
that everywhere arrests our attention. The 
ancient church fathers and the modern critics 
alike have felt the charming spell. Clement of 
Alexandria says that John, last of all, encouraged 
by familiar friends and urged by the Spirit, 
wrote a spiritual Gospel. Origen, another father 
of the same school, most beautifully observed 
that the beloved John had leaned so much upon 



'According to Dr. B. F. Westcott, "this Gospel is in the hishest sense a 
poem, because it is the simple utterance of a mind which received into itself 
most deeply, and reproduced most simply, absolute truth. The other Gospels 
are memoirs, because they present the life of Christ under limited relations: 
John's Gospel is a poem because it presents the Life uniformly in its relation to, 
the Infinite, and poetry is the power of giving Infinity to things." 



THE WEITINGS OF JOHN 149 

the Master's bosom that he imbibed the spirit 
of his Lord, and they only can comprehend this 
divinest Gospel who like him also lean on Jesus's 
breast. Saint Jerome, the great Latin father, 
says that "John excels in the depths of divine 
mysteries." In the ecclesiastical symbolism of 
the cherubim it is common to picture John as 
the eagle, whose face is upward toward the sun, 
as if soaring away into the heavenly light. And 
a poet of the Middle Ages, in what the late Dr. 
Schaff pronounced "one of the finest and most 
musical stanzas ever written in the Latin or 
any other language," thus eulogizes John : 

Volat avis sine meta, 
Quo nee vates nee propheta 

Evolavit altius: 
Tarn implenda, quam impleta, 
Nunquam videt tot secreta 

Purus homo purius. 
(Adam of St. Victor, died about 1192.) 

Bird of God, with boundless flight, 
Soaring far beyond the height 

Of the bard or prophet old; 
Truth fulfilled, and truth to be- 
Never purer mystery 

Did a purer tongue unfold! 

(J. M. Neale.) 

Another poem by the same author reads thus : 

Sed Joannes ala bina 
Caritatis aquilina, 
Forma fertur in divina 
Puriori lumine. 



150 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

John, love's double wing devising, 
Earth on eagle plumes despising, 
To his Lord and God uprising, 
Soars away in purer light. 

A writer who has made such impressions on 
his readers can be no ordinary man. We may 
take up his written Gospel and study it in great 
confidence that the ancient scribe knew his 
ground well when he appended the postscript 
which says: "This is the disciple who beareth 
Avitness of these things, and wrote these things; 
and we know that his testimony is true." And 
the author himself declares the purpose of his 
Gospel when he says (20. 31), "These are 
written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye 
may have life in his name." I shall point out 
five notable examples, or illustrations, of the 
mystic but profound spiritual idealism of this 
remarkable Gospel. They are the doctrine of the 
Word, the new Birth, the heavenly Manna, the 
Resurrection and the Life, and ultimate union 
and fellowship with God. 

1. The Word 

The prologue of the fourth Gospel is adapted 
to attract the attention of a philosophical mind. 
Unlike the human genealogies of Jesus found 
in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, this pro- 
logue tells us of the Word, the Logos, that was 
in the beginning with God, and became flesh 



THE WRITINGS OF JOHN 151 

and manifested the glory of the everlasting 
Father. How is this divine Logos to be under- 
stood? 

1. The word is not original with John. Long 
before any of the New Testament books were 
written, this term "Logos" had been appro- 
priated in philosophic and theosophic thought. 
It is specially conspicuous in the writings of 
Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, who was contem- 
porary with Jesus. Philo speaks of the divine 
Logos as the "elder son of the Father," and as 
his "first born." He calls him the "image of 
God," the "oldest angel," "archangel of many 
titles," "second God," "archetype and pattern of 
the light." He is also conceived as the "indwell- 
ing word" and the "uttered word," the relation 
of which to each other is like that of thought 
to speech. Philo's Logos is the sum total of all 
divine energies, both as they exist in archetypal 
ideas in the divine essence and as they come 
forth in the varied forms of creation. He is, in 
fact, the ideal world as conceived by God, and 
also the actual world as realized in the visible 
product of creative energy. But the Logos of 
Philo is also, to some extent, an elaboration of 
the ideas of Plato touching the eternal arche- 
types of all things which come into form and 
being in time. Closely akin to these concep- 
tions is the personification of Wisdom in the 
Old Testament book of Proverbs. There it is 
written (8. 22, 23) : "Jehovah possessed me in 



152 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

the beginning of his way, before his works of 
old. I was set rip from everlasting, from the 
beginning, or ever the earth was." In the 
apocryphal book of the Wisdom of Solomon it 
is also written (7. 25 fol.) : "Wisdom is a breath 
of the power of God, a clear effluence of the glory 
of the Almighty, an effulgence from everlasting 
light, and an unspotted mirror of the working 
of God." But the germ of all these ideas in the 
Hebrew mind may be found at the very begin- 
ning of the Old Testament Scriptures, where 
each successive act in the sublime picture of 
creation is introduced by the words, a God said." 
A philosophical mind would naturally conceive 
the whole creation as produced by the onmific 
word of God, and the Hebrew poets sang of it 
thus: 

By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made; 
And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. 
For he spake, and it was done; 
He commanded, and it stood fast (Psa. 33. 6, 9). 

Such a creative word of God as brought light 
out of the primeval darkness was thought of 
as a manifested Power of God. All the the- 
ophanies of the Old Testament would further 
suggest various ideals of God revealing himself 
in some outward visible form. And so in the 
later Jewish literature the word and wisdom of 
God became personified, and we find in the Tar- 
gums the terms "Memra," "Dibbura," and 
"Shekina" employed again and again in place 



THE WKITINGS OF JOHN 153 

of the divine Name, which occurs in the text of 
the Hebrew Scriptures. The Targum on Isaiah 
9. 6, Micah 5. 1, and Zechariah 4. 7, says that 
the Messiah is from eternity; and according to 
the book of Enoch (4=8. 2, 3, 6), his name was 
called the Son of man before the sun and stars 
were made, and will abide before him to all 
eternity. So it is very noteworthy that the term 
"Logos," or Word of God, was widely used in 
theosophic discussions before our fourth Gospel 
was written. 

2. We suppose, in the next place, that the 
early apostles of Christianity often came into 
contact with current systems of philosophy. It 
is recorded that Epicurean and Stoic philoso- 
phers encountered Paul at Athens. The learned 
Alexandrian, Apollos, came to Ephesus and 
taught there and at other places, and there is 
no doubt that the Alexandrian theosophy was 
familiar to him, and was likely to have been 
talked over by him and other Christian teachers. 
Greek philosophy and incipient Gnosticism 
doubtless often arrested the attention of Paul 
and John and their colaborers. There are two 
ways of treating such diverse systems of human 
thought. One is to make direct and open war 
upon them; the other is to appropriate the new 
forms of thought, and make them a means of 
exposition and instruction. There are doctrines 
which we can treat only as errors, and simple 
honesty and love for the truth require us to 



154 BACCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

take that course. But when we meet a word or 
phrase in which we discern a rich fullness of 
meaning, and can employ it as the medium of 
a new and higher thought, it is a mark of superior 
Avisdom to appropriate such a medium for a lofty 
purpose. This latter seems to have been John's 
method with the term "Logos" (Word). He per- 
ceived in that expression a special vehicle for 
advancing the claims of the gospel of Christ. 
The Alexandrian theosophy was "in the air" of 
every religious and literary center of the Greek- 
speaking Orient, and it is hardly possible that 
any Christian propagandist of the first or second 
century could have failed to encounter it in the 
chief cities of proconsular Asia. It is, more- 
over, a notable fact that the first apostles of 
Christianity, in making use of the Greek 
language to proclaim their doctrines, were 
obliged to employ many a Greek word to express 
thoughts quite new to the world. Hence it is 
that the Hellenistic dialect of the New Testa- 
ment is conspicuously different from that of the 
more ancient classical writers. Accordingly, the 
term "Logos," as used in John's Gospel, is not 
to be identified in meaning with the Logos of 
Philo, or the archetypal idea of Plato, or the 
Memra of the Targums, or the personified Wis- 
dom of the Proverbs. And yet all of these may 
have contributed somewhat to the development 
of the profound ideal which is set before us in 
the prologue of the fourth Gospel. The superior- 



THE WRITINGS OF JOHN 155 

ity of John's conception of the Word, and the 
originality of his genius appear in the ease and 
simplicity which he manifests in all this realm 
of esoteric thought. The Logos of his teaching 
is no mixture of dualistic and Docetic notions; 
no fanciful picture of powers and attributes now 
in repose and then again in action, as Philo 
seems to think. There is in his language the 
calm expression of one who knows of what he 
speaks. He is conscious of the reality of the 
Word of God. For he tells us at the beginning 
of his first epistle that he had heard, and seen 
with his own eyes, and even handled the Word 
of life which became flesh, so that he could "bear 
witness, and declare the eternal life which was 
with the Father, and was manifested unto us" 
(1. 2). With him the Word is the only begotten 
Son of God, existing in the bosom of the Father 
before the world was, and revealing his nature 
and glory by means of a personal incarnation 
among men. We find the same thought set forth 
in a different form of words in Paul's epistle to 
the Colossians (1. 13, 15), where he speaks of 
"The Son of his love, who is the image of the 
invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." 
What distinguishes this concept of God revealing 
himself in his Son or through his Word is the 
real personality of the Logos. The Hindu mystic 
has much to tell us about avatars, incarnations, 
transmigration of souls, and ultimate Nirvana 
iin the bosom of Brahm, the absolute divine 



156 BACCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

essence of the universe. We may claim that 
John's doctrine of the Logos has some analogies. 
All true knowledge of God must come to us 
through some manner of incarnation. The reve- 
lation or manifestation of the Invisible must be 
given in some visible form. So we read, "In the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God." In that far 
beginning, wherever in imagination you place 
it, the Word already was, not began to be. Then 
it is majestically added, "and the Word was 
with God." This implies some sense in which 
the Word is distinguished from God, but it is 
immediately added, as if to emphasize the unity 
and substantial identity of the two, "and the 
Word was God." Thereupon it is said, "All 
things through him were made," or came into 
being. The one deep esoteric thought is, The 
Word of God is God himself speaking, acting, 
bringing all things into being, and revealing his 
own power and glory in the personality of "the 
Son of his love." 

This, then, is the magnificent doctrine : In the 
incarnation of the Logos we behold the sublime 
ideal of God putting himself in direct contact 
with humanity. The divine reason, wisdom, 
power, love, makes itself a way of self-manifesta- 
tion in the conscience and life of man, who is 
made in the image of God. Spirit and matter 
appear to us as essentially opposite. All material 
forms are transitory. But thought, intelligence, 



THE WRITINGS OF JOHN 157 

wisdom, and all the transcendent Power which 
these words suggest, are ideally revealed and 
embodied in that perfect man we call the Christ. 
He is the Word made flesh. And when it is 
said, "In him was life, and the life was the light 
of men," we catch the further thought that this 
Light was no new thing, shining for the first 
time when the Word became flesh in the person 
of Jesus. It was coetaneous with the creation 
of the world, when God said, "Let there be light, 
and there was light." That divine Light has 
been shining from the beginning until now, and 
it keeps on shining, whether men apprehend it 
or not. 

Let us now seek some other translation than 
that with which we are so familiar. If we could 
only read it in some poetic paraphrase, some 
form of words that would be more in keeping 
with the mystic undertone, we might at least 
acquire a new conception of the depth and beauty 
of this inimitable introduction. The great Ger- 
man poet Goethe has made a version, which I 
here present in the fine English translation of 
Bayard Taylor. It occurs in the third scene of 
the drama of Faust, where that weird character 
opens a book, and reads : 

Tis written: "In the beginning was the Word." 

Here am I balked; who, now, can help afford? 

The Word? — impossible so high to rate it; 

And otherwise must I translate it, 

If by the Spirit I am truly taught. 

Then thus: "In the beginning was the Thought" 



158 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

This first line let me weigh completely, 

Lest my impatient pen proceed too fleetly. 

Is it the Thought which works, creates, indeed? 

"In the beginning was the Poioer" I read. 

Yet as I write, a warning is suggested, 

That I the sense may not have fairly tested. 

The Spirit aids me: now I see the Light! 

"In the beginning was the Act," I write. 

This version, however, only touches the possible 
ideas that may attach to the term "Word." How 
may we go on, in some similar vein, to suggest 
the rhythm and far-reaching significance of the 
whole passage? I submit the following rhythmic 
version of the wonderful prologue: 

In the beginning was Intelligence, 

The power and personality of thought; 

And that power was so closely one with God, 

Eternally existent and divine, 

That God himself was the Intelligence. 

By this and through this all things came to be, 

So that without divine Intelligence 

Conceived and wrought, not one thing ever came 

Into existence that has being now. 

Life has its source and essence in this Power, 

And is itself the force that quickens all 

Which moves and breathes; and this life is the light 

Of every man that comes into the world. 

And this light in the moral darkness shines; 

But so dense is the darkness, and so dull 

The spiritual appetency of mankind, 

That when light comes, dark souls perceive it not. 

Divine Intelligence was in the world, 

The world was fashioned by his master-skill, 

And made all fair, and the world knew him not. 

He came into the things that were his own, 

And they who were his own received him not. 



THE WRITINGS OF JOHN 159 

But such as did receive him, and perceive 
In him the light and life, to them he gave 
Power to become God's children, and to know 
Themselves begotten, not of flesh and blood, 
But of God, whose Intelligence and Love 
Became incarnate in the blessed Christ. 
For God is not a being to be seen 
By mortal eyes; him no man ever saw; 
But in the person of the Son of God 
The bosom of the Father is disclosed, 
And we behold his glory, and discern 
The character and qualities divine 
Which Son and Father must alike possess. 

2. The New Birth 

Our next step in studying the peculiar doc- 
trines of John is to examine his report of Jesus' s 
teaching about being born from above. It pur- 
ports to be a conversation with Nicodemus, a 
ruler of the Jews. This man of rank had some- 
where and somehow become deeply impressed 
with the character of Jesus, and said to him, 
"We know that thou art a teacher come from 
God." But he was met with the immediate re- 
sponse from the Great Teacher, "Except a man 
be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom 
of God." The Greek word dvudev occurs again 
in the same chapter (verse 31) in the statement, 
"He that cometh from above is above all; he 
that is of the earth is of the earth, and of the 
earth he speaketh." The epistle of James em- 
ploys the same word in speaking of the pure and 
peaceable wisdom that is from above (3. 17). 
Nicodemus failed to grasp the profound idea of 



160 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

a birth from heaven, and asked in amazement, 
"How can these things be?" Jesus's answer was 
far-reaching, and had its rebuke and censure for 
the Jewish ruler. "Art thou the teacher of 
Israel, and understandest not these things?" 
Have you never comprehended the cry of the 
psalmist, "Create for me a clean heart, O God"? 
Have you not read what God says to Israel in 
the prophet Ezekiel? — "I will sprinkle clean 
water upon you, and ye shall be clean. A new 
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will 
I put within you." What you need, Mcodemus, 
is not so much new knowledge as new life. You 
must be born again, born from above. And 
then follow those mystic words, over which the 
commentators have wrestled for centuries, "Ex- 
cept one be born of water and Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God." 

What is the real meaning of these words? I 
cannot, for one, accept the idea of the sacra- 
mentarian theologians who tell us that to be 
"born of water" is to receive the rite of baptism 
with whatever gracious benefit such baptism of 
water may carry with it to the soul. I would 
much sooner believe that the two words, "water 
and," are an ancient interpolation of a scribe 
who inserted here a sacramental error which 
infected Christian teaching at an early period. 
Is any mere outward ceremony or rite, like im- 
mersion in water, or the pouring or sprinkling 
of water on a man, to be regarded as necessary 



THE WRITINGS OF JOHN 161 

in order to enter the kingdom of God? To erect 
such a formality of outward ritual into a promi- 
nence coordinate with the deepest mysteries of 
the Spirit seems hardly in keeping with the 
realm of thought in which this fourth Gospel 
moves. Baptism with water is a symbol of re- 
generation, but it cannot answer fully to the 
ideal of heavenly birth which is here taught. 
Birth, generation, genesis always and every- 
where involves the idea of a new creation. 

In Henry Drummond's Natural Law in the 
Spiritual World, in the suggestive chapter on 
"Biogenesis," the testimony of leading author- 
ities in the scientific world is cited to show that 
the theory of "spontaneous generation" has no 
valid evidence in its favor. Tyndall is quoted 
as affirming "that no shred of trustworthy ex- 
perimental testimony exists to prove that life 
in our day has ever appeared independently of 
antecedent life." In all the world of nature, 
then, life can only originate from some ante- 
cedent life. "No change of substance, no modi- 
fication of environment, no chemistry, no elec- 
tricity, nor any form of energy, nor any evolution 
can endow any atom of the mineral world with 
the attribute of life. Only by bending down 
into this dead world of some living form can 
these dead atoms be gifted with the properties 
of vitality." 

Apply, now, this law of nature in its analogy 
to spiritual things. As we might say to any 



162 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

form of inanimate matter, Except some germ of 
life be imparted to it from the higher sphere of 
organic life, it cannot enter the realm of life 
at all, so we say to every one who is "dead in 
trespasses and sins," that is, has his whole nature 
and being in the low plane of fleshly appetites 
and passions, "Except ye be born from above, 
born of water and Spirit, ye cannot enter the 
kingdom of God." I said a moment ago that 
birth, or genesis, implies the ideal of a new crea- 
tion. We begin in these days to understand that 
creation in its real import is a begetting. God 
himself produces no "spontaneous generations." 
The picture of creation in the first chapters of 
Genesis is that of a series of births, and is there 
spoken of as the "generations of the heavens and 
the earth." When, therefore, it is said that one 
must be born of water and Spirit, we may under- 
stand a metaphorical allusion to the beginning 
when "darkness was upon the face of the deep, 
and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of 
the waters." The water and Spirit from whose 
combined activity there came forth the various 
generations of the earth and the heavens suggest 
a corresponding generation of the spiritual life 
of man. As the primeval chaos, brooded over 
by the Spirit of God, hears the omnific Word 
say, "Let there be light, Let there be organic- 
divisions and forms, Let there be life, Let the 
waters swarm with living things," so the great 
deep of man's earthly nature, responding to the 



THE WRITINGS OF JOHN 163 

same Word of God that was in the beginning 
with God, is born of water and Spirit. He is 
born, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, 
nor of the will of man, but of God." To use 
Paul's language, he is "a new creation (or new 
creature) : the old things are passed away." He 
has been "renewed in the spirit of his mind, and 
has put on the new man, which after God hath 
been created in righteousness and holiness of 
truth." This profound concept is a favorite with 
John. In his first epistle he says, "Whosoever 
is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed 
abideth in him." That is, the germ of heavenly 
life is in him ; being born of the Spirit, the germ- 
inal principle of eternal life is incorporated in 
his beiug. For this reason, it is added, "He 
cannot sin, because he is begotten of God." Sin, 
impurity of heart and life, is foreign to the new 
creation of God. Sin and purity are opposites. 
The one necessarily excludes the other. So he 
says a little further on, "Love is of God; and 
everyone that loveth is begotten of God and 
knoweth God. God is love; and he that abideth 
in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. 
We love, because he first loved us." 

Being born from above, then, is the profound 
spiritual idea of our human nature divinely 
lifted out of the chaotic darkness aud confusion 
of its low earthly tendencies into the light and 
life of God. It is conceived as a new creation, 
emerging, like the ideal in Genesis, from water 



164 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

and Spirit by the Word of God. 1 That Word 
is the incorruptible germ of all spiritual light 
and life. We have already seen how the Word 
became incarnate in Jesus, and revealed a "glory 
as of an only begotten of the Father, full of 
grace and truth." So the new man, born of God, 
and so born from above, is also a partaker of 
the divine nature, "having been begotten again, 
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by 
the word of God, who liveth and abideth" (1 Pet. 
1. 23). This grand thought is also a cherished 
doctrine of Paul, and he says with equal beauty 
and force, "It is God that said, Light shall shine 
out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to 
give the light of knowledge of the glory of God 
in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4. 6). 

3. The Heavenly Manna 

I pass next to the teaching concerning the 
living bread out of heaven, of which we find some 
most remarkable sayings in the sixth chapter of 
John's Gospel. When the multitude sought him 
the next day after he fed the five thousand with 
five loaves and two fishes, Jesus charged them 
with seeking him on account of the loaves and 
the fishes rather than from the deeper motive 
of a love divine, and exhorted them to "work 



1 Olshausen, who explains the birth from water and Spirit much as I have 
done above, quotes a Christian poet as follows: 

"By nature I am like the waste and gloomy earth. 
O that my eyes and heart with tears would overflow; 
And then might thy good Spirit, these sad waters hovering o'er, 
Reanimate my lifeless heart with light and strength." 



THE WRITINGS OF JOHN 165 

not for the food which perishes, but for the food 
which abides unto eternal life." And when they 
referred to the manna which the fathers ate in 
the wilderness, Jesus said to them: "The bread 
of God is that which comes down out of heaven, 
and gives life unto the world. I am the bread 
of life; he that comes to me shall not hunger, 
and he that believes in me shall never thirst." 
No wonder that the Jews murmured at these 
mystic words. But he plunged them into deeper 
confusion by adding, "Murmur not among your- 
selves ... I am the bread of life. Your fathers 
did eat the manna in the wilderness, and they 
died. ... I am the living bread which came 
down out of heaven; if any man eat of this 
bread, he shall live for ever; yea, and the bread 
which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the 
world." When after these sayings they wondered 
still more, he even went on to say, "Except ye 
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his 
blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that 
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath 
eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last 
day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood 
is true drink." 

Here we have one of the most enigmatical say- 
ings in the writings of John. A literal explana- 
tion of it would be obviously absurd. The Lord 
himself furnishes the clue when he says a little 
further on, "The words that I have spoken unto 
you are spirit and are life." One must enter 



166 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

into the Holy of holies of Christian spiritual 
life and thought to appreciate such language. 
There is an inner, hidden, esoteric life, which 
is well known to those who have come to living 
fellowship with God. The ancient psalmist knew 
its divine secret when he wrote, "He that dwell- 
eth in the secret place of the Most High shall 
abide under the shadow of the Almighty." "He 
conceals me in his pavilion ; in the day of trouble 
he hides me in the secret place of his tabernacle" 
(Psa. 91. 1; 27. 5). Paul shows his knowledge 
of the holy mystery when he speaks of that life 
that "is hid with Christ in God," and says, "I 
am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I 
that live, but Christ lives in me ; and that which 
I now live in the flesh I live in faith, which is in 
the Son of God." 

The Jews were wont to regard the gift of 
manna as the greatest of all miracles. It stood 
apart in the ancestral traditions as a symbol of 
all that was most gracious in the providence 
of God. It was accordingly a most appropriate 
emblem of the true spiritual nourishment of the 
Christian life, and corresponds in suggestive im- 
port with the ideal of the heavenly birth already 
noticed. One who is born from above must needs 
have heavenly food. 

4. The Resurrection and the Life 

I cannot linger on all the beautiful ideals of 
life that John's Gospel has given to the world. 



THE WEITINGS OF JOHN 1G7 

I would like to compare the allegory of the vine 
and its branches, and dwell upon the admoni- 
tion, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch 
cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in 
the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in 
me. I am the vine, ye are the branches." We 
must also pass over the doctrine of the water of 
life, which was taught by the side of Jacob's 
well at Sychar. "Every one that drinks of this 
water," said the great Teacher, "shall thirst 
again ; but whosoever drinketh of the water that 
I shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water 
that I shall give him shall become in him a well 
of water springing up unto eternal life." I 
hasten on to speak of that lesson of imperish- 
able life which is given in connection with the 
story of the resurrection of Lazarus. I need 
not repeat the familiar story, so tenderly true 
to the tearful experiences through which we all 
of us must some time pass. But I fix upon the 
one passage where Martha goes out to meet the 
Lord, and says to him, "If thou hadst been here, 
my brother had not died." Jesus said to her, 
"Thy brother shall rise again." Martha replies, 
"I know that he shall rise again in the resur- 
rection at the last day." But Jesus said to her, 
"I am the resurrection, and the life; he that 
believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; 
and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall 
never die." Here we reach well nigh the utter- 
most depth of esoteric doctrine. 



168 BAOCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

I will here cite another portion of John's 
Gospel bearing on this same great truth. In 
chapter five it is written, "As the Father raises 
up the dead, and makes them alive, even so 
the Son makes alive whom he will. ... He that 
hears my word, and believes him that sent me, 
has eternal life, and into judgment he comes 
not, but has passed out of death into life." Here 
we note that it is a present, not a future life 
that is entered by the faith of Christ. In this 
it corresponds in essential thought with the new 
birth from heaven, and the life that is nourished 
by the heavenly manna. Now, however, it is 
contemplated not as a new creation, nor even as 
a life supported by continual nourishment, but 
as a resurrection from the dead, and consequent 
eternal, imperishable life. 

No extended comment will make this marvel- 
ous thought more clear. One needs, rather, to 
treasure the glorious ideal in his heart, and let 
it live within him. One of our American poets 
has beautifully sung, "There is no death; what 
seems so is transition." That is but a modern 
echo of the words of Jesus. We owe it to the 
mystic John that we find these deep mysteries 
of the spirit thus recorded. For these things 
are written, he tells us (20. 31), "that ye may 
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; 
and that believing ye may have life in his name." 
He who is born of God becomes a partaker of 
the divine nature, passes out of death into life, 



THE WRITINGS OF JOHN 169 

and knows the magic and the mystery of his 
Lord's profoundest utterance, "I am the resur- 
rection, and the life." 

5. The Ultimate Glory of Fellowship 
with God 

Beyond this point there seems to be but one 
more ideal possible to human thought, and that 
is the ultimate glory of personal, conscious, 
eternal union and fellowship of all his children 
with the everlasting Father. I may best present 
this ideal in the language of Jesus, as recorded 
in his remarkable intercessory prayer: "Now, 
glorify thou me, O Father, with thine own self, 
the glory which I had with thee before the world 
was. I have manifested thy name to the men 
whom thou gavest me out of the world . . . Holy 
Father, keep them in thy name, . . . that they 
may be one, even as we are. . . . Sanctify them 
in the truth; thy word is truth. ... I pray for 
them also that believe on me through their word ; 
that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, 
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be 
in us ; that the world may believe that thou didst 
send me. And the glory which thou hast given me 
I have given unto them; that they may be one, 
even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, 
that they may be perfected into ONE." This is 
the climax of heavenly thought in the writings of 
John. This is the Christian ideal of the unity of 
God and all his loving and beloved children, made 



170 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

one by the mediation of the "only begotten Son," 
who was in the beginning with God. Here we 
may, if one please, behold the loftiest Christian 
ideal of what the Buddhist calls Nirvana. This 
is the ultimate attainment and blissful repose 
of all who know "the way, the truth, and the 
life." This, moreover, is the true pantheism of 
"God over all, and in all, and through all"; in 
whom we now "live and move and have our 
being," but in whom we then shall "know even 
as also we have been known." 

What, now, is the difference between this idea 
of pantheism and that which is commonly so 
called? My answer is that the monism, the 
Nirvana, and the pantheism of Christian doc- 
trine maintain the distinctive, individual, self- 
conscious personality of every child of God. The 
eternal life of the Christian Nirvana is that of 
conscious and abiding fellowship of a personal 
God and Father. TVhen confronted by that mys- 
tic philosophy which affirms that "whatsoever 
has had a beginning must have an end," I answer 
that such an hypothesis may be true so far as it 
concerns the material forms of the world of 
sense; but when applied to the self-conscious, 
thinking, rational personality of the human soul, 
bearing the very image of the eternal God, it is 
at best a bare, unproven and unprovable asser- 
tion. The doctrine of Jesus as set forth by John 
is that the Word, the Logos, divine Intelli- 
gence, is eternally with God. "In him was life, 



THE WKITINGS OF JOHN 171 

and the life was the light of men." To as many 
as receive him he gives the right and power to 
become children of God. Being thus born from 
above, they become partakers of the divine 
nature. In the mystic language of John, they 
"eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his 
blood." The personality thus begotten and sus- 
tained can never die. There is a sense, indeed, 
in which it may be said that it never had begin- 
ning, for its eternal background and source is 
the bosom of the Father. But such a concept 
must ultimately resolve itself into the better 
thought that, as likeness of nature is begotten 
by the generation of everything according to its 
kind, so the children of God necessarily partake 
of the spiritual and indestructible nature of the 
eternal Father. Self-conscious, distinctive, and 
individual personality is, therefore, not lost, ab- 
sorbed, or annihilated in its ultimate union with 
God in eternal glory, but, rather, perfected in 
fullness of knowledge, light, life, and everything 
that goes to make up that glory into which the 
Christ of God leads all those whom he is not 
ashamed to call his brethren. 

There is one other passage in Jesus's inter- 
cessory prayer which I have reserved as a most 
fitting sentiment to bring in at this conclusion 
of my theme. The best authenticated text of 
John 17. 24 reads literally thus: "Father, that 
ivhich thou hast given me (6 dedurcdg poi), I de- 
sire that where I am, they also (Kdnelvoi) may 



172 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

be with me, that they may behold my glory which 
thou hast given me, for thou didst love me before 
the foundation of the world." What is here 
peculiar in the form of expression is a unity 
which is first mentioned in the singular as "that 
whvch" and afterward is conceived as plural, 
"they may be with me and behold." First, all 
those who are united with God in Christ are 
assumed to be one, as he has already prayed. 
But as the thought turns to the individual be- 
holding of his glory, each separate and distinc- 
tive personality is conceived as seeing for him- 
self, and not for another. Herein we see a clear 
implication of the doctrine of the future eternal 
glory and perfection of personal fellowship with 
God and Christ. This is the Christian's beatific 
hope. Conscious personality, the highest, sweet- 
est boon of beings who can know and love, is 
not to be lost in the heavenly glorification. 
Having been made fit and sufficient, by a new 
birth from above and conscious life in Christ, 
to be "partakers of the inheritance of the saints 
in light," our personal individuality is perfected 
and glorified in the Father's "house of many man- 
sions," where they behold the glory for which the 
Saviour prayed. That glory, that Nirvana, is 
not annihilation of the conscious soul, not ab- 
sorption into impersonal and unconscious 
Brahm, not the passive and passionless abstrac- 
tion of the Buddhistic Nirvana, but the conscious 
fruition of glorified intelligence and love. 



THE WRITINGS OF JOHN 173 

The five great truths thus briefly presented 
must suffice. The living Word, the birth from 
above, the heavenly manna, the resurrection and 
the life, with ultimate glorification in unity and 
conscious fellowship with God — these are funda- 
mental teachings of the divinely gifted philoso- 
pher of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. These 
five noble truths are the secret treasure of every 
true Christian heart. 

In the writings of John one cannot but ob- 
serve the childlike simplicity which is every- 
where connected with that which is most esoteric 
and profound. The esoteric is closely associated 
with the exoteric; the occult with the practical; 
being with doing. One of the most memorable 
sayings of the fourth Gospel is, "If any man 
willeth to do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine, whether it be of God." But the doctrine 
and the knowledge in which the saintly John 
delights are embodied in the three words, 
light, life, love. I can do no better than 
close this lecture with the words of John 
himself, as written in his first epistle (3. 1, 2) : 
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed upon us, that we should be called chil- 
dren of God; and such we are. . . . Beloved, 
now are we children of God, and it is not yet 
made manifest w T hat we shall be. We know that, 
if it were made manifest we shall be like him; 
for we shall see him even as he is." 



VIII 

RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL 
STANDPOINT OF METHODISM IN 
THE CHRISTIAN WORLD 1 

I. Chronological Data 

1. John Wesley was born at Epworth, Eng- 
land, June 17, 1703. 

2. When about six years old lie was rescued 
from the burning parsonage. 

3. From the time he was seventeen until he 
was twenty-two years old he was a student at 
Christ Church College, Oxford. 

4. In 1726 he was elected Fellow of Lincoln 
College, Oxford. 

5. For two years thereafter he assisted his 
father as curate at Epworth. 

6. In 1729 he returned to Oxford to discharge 
the functions of his fellowship, and from that 
date until 1735 he was the central figure, the 
soul, the organizer and manager of the famous 
"Oxford Holy Club," which received the name of 
"Methodists" by way of contempt and ridicule. 

7. In 1735 he went to Georgia to be a mis- 
sionary to the American Indians. 



x Read before one of the denominational Congresses at the World's Parlia- 
ment of Religions in Chicago, 1893; and repeated at various places during the 
year 1903, the two hundredth Anniversary of John Wesley's birth. 

174 



METHODISM 175 

8. Three years later, on May 24, 1738, at a 
meeting in Aldersgate, while he was listening to 
one reading the preface of Luther's commentary 
on the Romans, he felt his heart "strangely 
warmed," and consciously entered into the life 
of faith. 

9. The same year he visited Herrnhut, in 
Germany, heard Christian David, the Moraviau 
carpenter, preach the simple gospel of a living 
faith. 

10. In 1739 he organized the "United Soci- 
eties," which were the beginning of organized 
Methodism. 

II. Other Facts Deserving Our Attention 

1. The class meeting system was instituted 
in 1742. 

2. At this time Wesley and his associates in 
the ministry were shut out of the churches of 
England, and took to the open fields for 
preaching. 

3. The first Conference of these preachers 
(consisting of six clergymen and four lay 
helpers) was held in London in 1744. 

4. In the following years, 1745-1747, the cir- 
cuit system of itinerant preaching was organized 
and put in operation. 

5. The Kingswood school was opened in 
1748, the first Methodist theological seminary. 

6. In 1770 occurred the separation of Calvin- 
istic and Arminian Methodism. 



176 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

7. In 1784 the Methodist Episcopal Church 
of America was organized. 

8. In 1791 John Wesley died, in the eighty- 
eighth year of his life. 

And what a life was that ! What manifold 
experiences ! John Wesley rode, mostly on horse- 
back, some two hundred and fifty thousand miles. 
For fifty years he preached about five hundred 
sermons a year. He wrote short grammars of 
the English, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew 
languages. He wrote a commentary on the whole 
Bible. His other publications are numbered by 
scores. He made one hundred thousand dollars 
and gave it all away. He possessed a genius for 
religion and organization. Two hundred years 
after his birthday we behold his Methodism a 
world-wide system, going forth to new triumphs 
every year. We hesitate not to pronounce John 
Wesley one of the greatest, if not the greatest, 
of the apostles of Jesus since the days of Paul, 
the apostle to the Gentiles. 

Methodism, as an organized system of reli- 
gious life and activity, makes no pretension to 
dignities, honors, powers, or prerogatives derived 
from antiquity. It is less than two centuries 
since she began her mission in the world. Her 
glory is not that of outward forms, but of a 
special divine call to spread scriptural holiness 
in the earth. Her message is one of good will 
to all men, and to all churches, whatever their 
name and forms of worship. Her catholic spirit 



METHODISM 177 

has declared that she "never whipped a Quaker, 
never burned a witch, never banished a Baptist." 

III. The Beginnings of Methodism 

It becomes us, first of all, to notice some facts 
connected with the origin of Methodism. The 
beginnings of the movement are told in a state- 
ment published in 1743, over the signatures of 
John and Charles Wesley, which may be read 
in our Discipline, where it has stood since 1789 
as an introduction to our "General Bules" : 
"In the latter end of the year 1739 eight or ten 
persons who appeared to be deeply convinced of 
sin, and earnestly groaning for redemption, came 
to Mr. Wesley in London. They desired, as did 
two or three more the next day, that he would 
spend some time with them in prayer, and ad- 
vise them how to flee from the wrath to come, 
which they saw continually hanging over their 
heads. That he might have more time for this 
great work, he appointed a day when they might 
all come together; which from thenceforward 
they did every week, namely, on Thursday, in 
the evening. To these, and as many more as 
desired to join with them (for their number 
increased daily), he gave those advices from time 
to time which he judged most needful for them ; 
and they always concluded their meeting with 
prayer suited to their several necessities. This 
was the rise of the United Society, first 
in Europe, and then in America. Such a society 



178 BACCALAUKEATE SERMONS 

is no other than 'a company of men having the 
form and seeking the power of godliness, united 
in order to pray together, to receive the word 
of exhortation, and to watch over one another 
in love, that they may help each other to work 
out their salvation/ " 

"These general rules of our societies" are a 
very fair exhibit of the aims and spirit of early 
Methodism. It should be remembered that these 
rules were the regulations of a small society, a 
sort of close private corporation, a guild, so to 
speak, composed of members of the Church of 
England. No new Church was contemplated by 
the founders of Methodism when they accepted 
these general rules. But all who were banded 
together to observe these rules believed them to 
be in strict accord with the Word and will of 
God, being such as "his Spirit writes on truly 
awakened hearts." 

Great revivals and reformations in the Church 
find their beginnings in the religious experience 
of individual souls. Generally, we can trace 
their origin to the struggles of a single mind. 
Wesley himself declared that he found the 
blessed rest of faith in Jesus only after a con- 
tinuous quest of twenty-five years. And yet his 
childhood and all his early life were conspic- 
uously devout. When he was a student at Oxford 
he felt and showed a strong disposition to seek 
seclusion from the world. He even meditated 
the propriety of his entering a monastery to 



METHODISM 179 

cultivate the religious life. He opened his heart 
one day to a man distinguished for seriousness 
of mind and received from him, as from a true 
prophet of God, this goodly counsel : "Sir, you 
cannot serve God alone. You must find com- 
panions, or else make them. The Bible knows 
nothing of solitary religion." He went back to 
Oxford and soon found companions in the "Holy 
Club." This small company of students met four 
evenings of the week to read the Greek Testa- 
ment and the ancient classics, and they devoted 
Sunday evenings to the study of theology. They 
also adopted plans for the regular visitation of 
those who were sick or in prison. It is inter- 
esting at this day to read the first printed attack 
on the Methodists, which appeared in Fogg's 
Weekly Journal, said to have been one of the 
most respectable papers published in England 
at that time. In its issue of December 9, 1732, 
this Journal says : "These Methodists pretend to 
great refinements. In order to live up to the 
principles of Christianity they doomed them- 
selves to absurd and perpetual melancholy. The 
chief hinge on which their whole scheme of reli- 
gion turns is that no action whatever is indif- 
ferent; and hence they condemn several actions 
as bad, which are not only allowed to be inno- 
cent, but valuable, by the rest of mankind. . . . 
All social entertainments and diversions are 
disapproved of; and, in endeavoring to avoid 
luxury, they not only exclude what is convenient 



180 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

but what is absolutely necessary for the support 
of life, fancying that religion was designed to 
contradict nature . . . All Wednesdays and Fri- 
days are strictly to be kept as fasts, and blood 
let once a fortnight, to keep down the carnal 
man. At dinner they sigh for the time they are 
obliged to spend in eating. Every morning to 
rise at four o'clock is supposed a duty, and to 
employ two hours a day in singing psalms and 
hymns is judged an indispensable requisite to 
the being a Christian." 

We must admit that this description is not 
altogether a caricature. John Wesley was con- 
stitutionally an ascetic. He would have made 
a superior mediaeval monk. His lifelong rule 
was to "use as much abstinence and fasting 
every week as health, strength, and labor would 
permit." It is set down in the General Rules 
that fasting is an ordinance of God. So is cir- 
cumcision and the priesthood of Aaron. Many 
good Christian people to this day fail to see that 
the requirement of such ordinances as a "bound en 
duty is as incompatible with the spirit of the 
gospel of Christ as if one should insist on putting 
new wine in old wine-skins, pieces of new cloth 
on an old garment, and keep fasting and mourn- 
ing in the presence of the bridegroom and the 
marriage feast. If any man believes it good for 
him to fast and "afflict his soul," let him do so 
with himself before God, but let him not make it 
a law for another man's conscience. 



METHODISM 181 

But with the first Methodists at Oxford these 
rigid rules of life were unmistakable evidences 
of profound seriousness. They served in their 
way as a schoolmaster to bring those Oxford 
students near to Christ. And the impartial and 
sympathetic historian of that time may behold in 
the life and activities of that "Holy Club" the 
providential preparation of a new development 
of Protestant Christianity. There was a new 
college of apostles waiting and working and 
praying in that ancient seat of learning for the 
"power from on high," which was soon to break 
up the dead formalism of the times, and exhibit 
to the world what has been happily called 
"Christianity in earnest." 

To understand the philosophy of the Methodist 
revival it is necessary to know the deplorable 
condition of morals and religion in Great Britain 
at that time. The Protestant Reformation of the 
sixteenth century was left very incomplete in 
England, and it may be said even now of the 
Established Church of England, as was said long 
ago, that she has a Calvinistic creed, an Ar- 
minian clergy, and a Popish ritual. Puritanism 
made no very successful opposition to the Romish 
tendencies of the Established Church. Even 
Presbyterianism assumed a High-Churchism al- 
most as arrogant as the claims of "apostolical 
succession." The short period of the Common- 
wealth brought out into prominence a large 
number of strong, true men of God, but the re- 



182 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

action which took place after the restoration 
displayed a most lamentable falling away. In 
his History of Methodism, Dr. Abel Stevens fur- 
nishes us with a fearful picture of the prevail- 
ing demoralization : "The court/' he says, "be 
came a royal brothel. The playhouse became the 
temple of England. The drama of the day could 
not now be exhibited, nor privately read, without 
the blush of shame. The Puritan churches fell 
into the general decay, and the masses of the 
people sunk into incredible vice and brutality. 
Isaac Taylor declares that England had lapsed 
into virtual heathenism when Wesley appeared." 
The works of the English deists were in fullest 
circulation, and the encyclopedists of France, 
led by such men as Voltaire and Rousseau, were 
making their famous efforts to eradicate the ex- 
isting Christianity from the world. Bishop 
Burnet deplored the ignorance of a large pro- 
portion of the clergy of England. Bishop Butler 
published his Analogy about the time John Wes- 
ley was toiling painfully in Georgia, and in his 
Preface to that immortal book he wrote : "It has 
come to be taken for granted that Christianity is 
no longer a subject of inquiry, but that it is 
now at length discovered to be fictitious. And, 
accordingly, it is treated as if, in the present 
age, this were an agreed point among all per- 
sons of discernment, and nothing remained but 
to set it up as a principal subject for mirth and 
ridicule." Wesley himself, at a later period of 



METHODISM 183 

Iris life, said that "it was just at the time when 
we wanted little of filling up the measure of 
our iniquities, that two or three clergymen of 
the Church of England began vehemently to call 
sinners to repentance." 

The origin of Methodism is, therefore, to be 
recognized as the outbreak of a marvelous revival 
of the Christian religion in England. The begin- 
ning and progress of that great revival is a 
wonderful manifestation of the power of God 
in modern history. The Wesleys and their asso- 
ciates in that religious movement. were as truly 
raised up and ordained of God to do the work 
they did as were Luther and his fellow reformers, 
and they were as truly anointed of God for their 
mission as were Paul and Apollos, and Isaiah 
and Elijah. 

IV. Agencies and Methods 

It is noteworthy that the Methodist revival 
was supplied at an early day with a remark- 
able literature of its own. The stately volumes 
of John Fletcher and Eichard Watson constitute 
a standard and consensus of Arminian theology 
which no modern Methodist preacher can afford 
to neglect. The commentaries of Wesley, Adam 
Clarke, Benson, and Coke have had an immense 
circulation, and have trained many in biblical 
exegesis. The hymns of Charles Wesley are gen- 
erally conceded to be without any superior in 
the range of Christian sacred song. The 



184 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

"Christian Library," edited by John Wesley, was 
published in fifty volumes, cost its projector two 
hundred pounds, and is an astonishing example 
of the industry and zeal of the great Methodist 
leader. It consisted of "Extracts from, and 
abridgements of, the choicest pieces of Practical 
Divinity which had been published in the Eng- 
lish tongue." Wesley set the first example of 
issuing books at low prices to be paid for by large 
sales. Many of his books went through ten or 
twenty editions, and then became scarce. A 
catalogue of his publications, printed about 175G, 
contains one hundred and eighty-one articles on 
a great variety of subjects, two thirds of which 
were for sale at less than one shilling each, and 
more than one fourth for a penny. Thus were 
they brought within the reach of the poorest of 
the people. His more important works have 
been published in fourteen volumes in England, 
and they are reproduced by our Book Concern 
in New York in seven stout octavos. It cannot 
be told how much this magnificent theological 
literature of Wesley and his contemporaries has 
contributed to the power and permanency of 
Methodism. In this country the early itinerants 
would carry with them portions of these works, 
stop in the woods to rest, and improve the time 
in reading. Sections of Adam Clarke's Commen- 
tary were carried in the saddlebags, and at night 
on the rude cabin floor, by the light of the flame 
of pine knots, or that of the blazing hearth-fire, 



METHODISM 185 

they would read and study his expositions of the 
Holy Scriptures. The early preachers were ad- 
monished "as often as possible to rise at four, 
and from four to five in the morning and from 
five to six in the evening to meditate, pray, and 
read the scriptures with notes, and the closely 
practical parts of what Mr. Wesley had written." 
They were to "be diligent. Never be unemployed. 
Never be triflingly employed, nor spend any 
more time at any place than is strictly neces- 
sary." 

The methods peculiar to Methodism are trace- 
able to the demands of some practical need. We 
are accustomed to regard them as of providential 
origin and growth. There are nearly thirty 
different kinds of Methodists in the world to- 
day, and they differ in details of church polity 
and worship. The class meeting, the love feast, 
the watch meeting, and the band meetings have 
had a notable history among nearly all the Meth- 
odist organizations. I shall here speak only of 
the more characteristic features of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. We are accustomed to boast 
of the completeness and the efficiency of our 
organization. We have the Quarterly Confer- 
ence, the District Conference, the Annual Con- 
ference, the Judicial Conference, and the General 
Conference. During the last three decades we 
have had three Ecumenical Conferences, a sort 
of Pan-Methodist General Assembly, not for 
legislative purposes, but solely for the mutual 



186 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

counsel and encouragement of the great Meth- 
odist family throughout the world, and it is 
probable that for many decades to come this 
Ecumenical Methodist Conference will continue 
to hold its decennial sessions in various parts 
of the world. 

We should mention also our system of proba- 
tion before full membership in the Church and 
in the Annual Conference; our itinerant min- 
istry, each pastor subject to reappointment every 
year; our licensing exhorters and local preach- 
ers; our episcopal superintendency, assisted 
by the presiding eldership. It has long been 
our boast that while we have had no "settled 
pastorate," there is not and has not been for 
more than a hundred years one pulpit or parish 
in the whole connection without a pastor. When 
any vacancy occurs the presiding elder, or the 
bishop, one or both, are immediately responsible 
for a supply, and the district superintendent 
becomes the legal pastor until such supply is 
found. Accordingly, no pulpit of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church is ever without a pastor, or, 
at least, a responsible pastoral supervision. And 
the Board of Bishops constitutes a powerful con- 
nectional bond. Our bishops are "general super- 
intendents," not diocesan bishops. They are to 
be in labors more abundant than other ministers, 
and in perils by land and sea they traverse the 
continents and cross the oceans to the uttermost 
parts of the earth, so that at their annual and 



METHODISM 187 

semiannual meetings, and at other times, they 
are able to report the conditions of our work in 
every State and Territory of this Union, and 
also in Mexico, in South America, in Europe, in 
Asia, in Africa, and in the islands afar off. Our 
great benevolent societies, organized as mission- 
ary, church extension, Sunday school, tract 
society, and educational boards of control, are so 
many connection al bonds, and they all with one 
accord do mightily conserve the esprit du corps, 
the connectional spirit, as well as serve the 
broader purpose of world-wide Christian propa- 
gandism. 

V. The Doctrines of Methodism 

I now pass to speak of the doctrines of Meth- 
odism. There can be no full or clear explanation 
of the marvelous growth of the Wesleyan move- 
ment in England and America without very plain 
recognition of that simple but positive doctrinal 
system which furnished the substance of the reli- 
gious teaching and preaching of the Methodist 
fathers. At a conference held in 1770, what 
Wesley had said twenty-six years before was 
made a matter of record: "We have leaned too 
much toward Calvinism." This declaration led 
to the lamentable split between Whitefield and 
Wesley, after which their followers became 
known as Calvinistic and Arminian Methodists. 
Now, more than a hundred years after that divi- 
sion, we behold Arminian Methodism a world- 



188 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

wide power, while Calvinistic Methodism is, com- 
paratively speaking, only Wales-wide. Other 
reasons may be given, but our main explanation 
of these facts lies in the adaptation of the doc- 
trines of evangelical Arminianism to meet the 
conscious religious needs of the common people. 
These doctrines Wesley ever sought to empha- 
size. At his first Conference, in 1744, the first 
two days were devoted to the question of what 
should be the staple of Methodist preaching. The 
unanimous conclusion there was that they should 
study to keep clear of all theological subtlety, 
and make prominent the doctrines of repentance, 
faith, justification, sanctification, and the wit- 
ness of the Spirit. "Our main doctrines," said 
Wesley, "are repentance, faith, and holiness. 
The first of these we account, as it were, the 
porch of religion; the next is the door; the third, 
religion itself." Thus it was a part of the provi- 
dential mission of Methodism to group together 
and proclaim a system of doctrine that was in- 
tensely practical. The Methodist preacher, un- 
like some of his brethren of other creeds, never 
found it impracticable or injudicious to declare 
any of his doctrines in the time of a revival. 
None of them had a tendency to throw any cold- 
ness over the meeting. They are all great soul- 
saving truths, and generally simple enough for 
a little child to understand. We have always 
emphasized the fact that Christianity is spiritual 
life rather than dogma. Wesley declared that 



METHODISM 189 

the Sermon on the Mount was the "sum of true 
religion/' and thirteen of his published sermons 
are an exposition of that great discourse of Jesus. 

It has many a time been charged against us 
that we preach a gospel of salvation by works, 
but we persistently deny this charge, proclaim 
the doctrine of justification by faith, and at the 
same time insist that we must have a a faith that 
works by love," according to the Scriptures. We 
magnify the word of Christ, who says, "Let your 
light shine before men, that they may see your 
good works and glorify your Father who is in 
heaven." And this, we maintain, is the distin- 
guishing feature of the doctrines of Methodism : 
they are intensely practical. They assume the 
universality of the atonement in Christ, the ever- 
living presence of the Holy Spirit, and the per- 
sonal freedom and responsibility of man. They 
appeal directly to the facts of consciousness, 
they offer comfort and unspeakable blessedness 
to them that cry out for the living God, and they 
exalt and beautify the character of all w T ho are 
governed by them. 

Deserving of special mention, as explaining 
the power and success of Methodism, is the cath- 
olic spirit of her teaching. Among the standard 
sermons of John Wesley we find one entitled 
"A Caution against Bigotry"; and it is immedi- 
ately followed by another on "The Catholic 
Spirit." In the first of these he says : "What if 
I were to see a Papist, an Arian, a Socinian cast- 



190 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

ing out devils? I could not forbid him without 
convicting myself of bigotry. Yea, if it could 
be supposed that I should see a Jew, a deist, or 
a Turk doing the same, were I to forbid him, 
either directly or indirectly, I should be no better 
than a bigot still." Wesley boasted of the re- 
markable liberality of Methodism. We do not 
impose any human opinions, he argued, as a test 
of membership in our societies. Methodists 
"think and let think. One condition, and one 
only, is required — a real desire to save one's 
soul. Where this is, it is enough. They ask 
only, 'Is thy heart herein as my heart? If it 
be, give me thy hand.' Where is there," he asks, 
"any other such society in Europe, or in the 
habitable world? I know none. 7 ' When one of his 
Conferences once raised the question of possible 
results of such liberality, Wesley concluded the 
debate by saying: "I have no more right to ob- 
ject to a man for holding a different opinion 
from me than I have to differ with him because 
he wears a wig, and I wear my own hair. But 
if he takes off the wig, and begins to shake the 
powder about my eyes, I shall consider it my 
duty to get quit of him as soon as possible." 

It must not be supposed, however, from state- 
ments like these, that Wesley or his followers 
made light of doctrinal opinions. Great care was 
given to the inculcation of "sound doctrine," the 
great vital truths of the gospel of Christ; but 
the practical simplicity of the chief doctrines of 



METHODISM 191 

Methodism begat the confidence that they needed 
only a fair hearing to be generally accepted. 
Hence their willingness to allow all reasonable 
liberty of thought. Hence, too, that noble utter- 
ance found in the minutes of the first Confer- 
ence: "What are we afraid of? Of oyerturning 
our first principles? If they are false, the sooner 
they are oyerturned the better." Note these 
words, and consider this motto and declaration 
of primitiye Methodism. It ought to be in- 
scribed in letters of gold oyer the door w ay of 
every hall of science, of criticism, of philosophy, 
of religion. Far, far off be the baneful day when 
the influential leaders of Methodism attempt to 
forbid, oppose, embarrass, or obstruct the free 
investigation and frank expression of conclusions 
reached by devout and conscientious students 
in any department of human learning. 

VI. Future Outlook 

Let us pass to ask, now, a few questions 
touching our outlook into the future. The past is 
secure. We should cherish and often meditate 
the inspiring facts of the two hundred and more 
years since Wesley's birth. We should talk of 
them with one another, and tell them to our chil- 
dren and our children's children. But this is 
the day of broad catholicity, and Methodism, as 
Ave have seen, has done her share in bringing 
about the fraternal catholic spirit which now so 
largely prevails in Christendom. We talk of 



192 BACCALAUREATE SERMOXS 

the reunion of all the branches of Methodism. 
Nay, men are talking all about us of the coming 
union of all the evangelical churches in one great 
Christian brotherhood. If such things go on, 
how can we think of our children and our chil- 
dren's children becoming Methodists? Old- 
fashioned Methodists seem almost out of date 
and place, and have we not reason to fear that 
new-fashioned Methodists are likely to prove a 
failure? I call attention to two facts : 

1. Our Church is unquestionably growing, 
and adding thousands to her membership every 
year. Whatever decline some years or decades 
show, we are still the great revival Church of 
Christendom. In foreign lands the doors are 
opening to us faster than we can enter them. A 
million conversions and millions for missions 
ought to be our annual work. We thank God 
for present activities as well as for past accom- 
plishments. 

2. But we note also serious losses. Our 
ministers and members are leaving us and going 
into other churches by the thousands every year. 
In some of our large towns and cities a large 
proportion of the membership of other denomina- 
tions are known to be ex-Methodists. One thing 
seems to me to be very clear, that, as a religious 
organization, we are wiser to win souls than we 
are to keep them within our Methodist fold. We 
do not feed the lambs, nor do we care for the 
sheep with the same degree of skill and efficiency 



METHODISM 193 

which we have shown in being "fishers of men." 
Ought Ave not, then, to ask ourselves how it is 
that so many of our sons and daughters are leav- 
ing our household of faith? 

I will venture to suggest a few things which 
I often hear alleged as reasons why we fail to 
keep many whom we might rightly claim. 

1. Our own catholic and liberal spirit begets 
the idea that the other communions are just as 
good as ours, and the good feeling among the 
churches and their cordial cooperation in all good 
works combine to make it an easy thing to pass 
out of one church into another. But would we 
have this otherwise? Shall we refuse fellowship 
with other Christian bodies, or say that they are 
not true Churches of Christ? Shall we presume 
to build up our own house by tearing down 
others, or crying out against them? After our 
splendid record for Christian catholicity, such a 
course would be the committing of spiritual 
suicide. 

2. There are some among us who believe that 
we lose multitudes because of our lack of an 
attractive public service. They would like the 
introduction of something more like the formal 
ritualism of the English Church. In not a few 
of our churches much time is given to the volun- 
tary performances of a well-trained choir, a sub- 
stitute in part for a more elaborate service. But 
it must be said, on the other hand, that these 
very things are quite distasteful to many of our 



194 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

people. They prefer the simpler form and order 
of worship in the house of God, and the proba- 
bility is that any strenuous attempt to introduce 
a more conspicuous ritual would drive more 
away than it would attract to the churches of 
Methodism. 

3. But it is alleged that with all our growth 
and enlarged knowledge we have not yet purged 
out the old leaven of John Wesley's High-Church- 
ism and the ascetic notions which he grafted 
into early Methodism. His ordination of Coke, 
and his claim to have as much right to ordain 
ministers as any man in England, has occasioned 
a hundred years of controversy over the question 
of orders. Some of our American preachers 
would seem to maintain that the office of "elder," 
or "presbyter," must needs involve prerogatives 
of indefeasible divine right. John Wesley's pre- 
sumption that as a presbyter of the Church of 
England he possessed right or authority to or- 
dain either elders or bishops was an amazing 
fallacy. His idea that because presbyters and 
bishops in a local church at Ephesus or at Alex- 
andria were of the same "order" in the current 
Anglican meaning of that word, is a paralogism 
that is almost amusing. One of his biographers 
wrote: "I wish they had been asleep when they 
began this business of ordination; it is neither 
episcopal nor presbyterian, but a mere hodge- 
podge of inconsistencies." 

The rules for fasting and abstinence which 



METHODISM 195 

Wesley fastened on the Methodist societies of 
England and America are virtually a dead letter 
in our churches to-day. It was the mistake of 
imposing a custom of defunct Judaism as if it 
were a commandment of Christ. The same mis- 
chievous error has been repeated in enacting the 
legal prohibition of particular forms of amuse- 
ment which thousands of our Christian people 
believe to be innocent and harmless, and which 
should be left to the individual judgment and 
conscience. If we but calmly lay aside inherited 
prejudices and fairly consider the essential prin- 
ciples involved, we may observe that attempts 
of the Church to legislate on matters of private 
and personal opinion is a chief reason for many 
deplorable divisions of the body of Christ. So 
long as one's life is upright and faithful to the 
precepts of Jesus Christ, let no man judge him 
in matters of eating, or drinking, or fasting, or 
ordinances. How strangely is our Christian 
world divided! One body of Christians insists 
on observing the seventh day of the week instead 
of the first as the Sabbath, and holds that prac- 
tice as a test of membership. Another excludes 
from its fellowship all who will not conform 
with certain rules and styles of dress. Another 
forbids its members to exercise the right of 
suffrage because God is not recognized in the 
Constitution of the United States. One of the 
largest denominations in this country has for 
generations made the mode of baptism a test of 



196 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

communion. Another body makes the claim of 
"apostolic succession" fundamental. Even in 
our own Methodism we have wandering revival- 
ists and cliques "for the promotion of holiness/' 
who are notorious for wholesale denunciation of 
their brethren who see no sufficient reason for 
sounding their shibboleths. Is it any wonder 
that great religious natures, like Abraham Lin- 
coln, decline to commit themselves to the petty 
rules and regulations of such church member- 
ship, and say, as he is reported to have said, 
"When you show me a church which requires 
for membership only loving God with all the 
heart and our neighbor as ourselves, I shall be 
glad to join it"? 

I make these observations only by way of sug- 
gestion. I am not offering an individual opinion 
for any one else to accept or follow, but calling- 
attention to a widespread conviction that is 
abroad to-day in all the great churches of Chris- 
tendom. I have great hope in the good sense 
and intelligence of the younger generation of 
leaders now appearing in all the churches. They 
propose to "prove all things, and hold fast that 
which is good." The future Methodism that is 
true to the main principles and the sanctified 
spirit of Wesley has a field and a work before 
it greater than that of the two centuries last 
past. We look for deep, broad counsels. We 
pray for zeal according to knowledge. 

A clergyman of the Church of England once 



METHODISM 197 

asked Mr. Wesley what the Methodists could do 
to keep alive his work after he himself should 
have passed away. His laconic and character- 
istic answwer was: "Four things; Methodists 
must look after their doctrines, their experience, 
their practice, and their discipline. If they look 
too much at doctrines only, they will turn into 
Antinomians; if they look only to their experi- 
ence, they will all turn mystics and enthusiasts ; 
if they regard practice only they will become 
Pharisees; and if they do not look after their 
discipline, they will be like one who plants a 
fine garden and puts no fence about it, so that 
it is open to the wild boars of the desert." 

These are words of wisdom and of rich sug- 
gestion for our times. We must not be narrow 
or one-sided. We should say with Wesley, "The 
world is my parish." Our work is not that of a 
guild, a total abstinence society, or a social 
club. The Church our Saviour purchased with 
his own blood is immeasurably larger than 
these. It has its high commission to evangelise 
the world. In all our plans, our prayers, our 
preaching, our ceaseless activity, our giving as 
God prospers us, our holy living and our trium- 
phant dying, may it be ours evermore to repeat 
what John Wesley uttered at the last: "The 
best of all is, God is with us" 



IX 

ADDRESS AT THE CENTENNIAL OF 
THE NEW YORK CONFERENCE 1 

It requires about a hundred years to found 
a Church and set it fully going. The establish- 
ing and complete organizing of Arminian Meth- 
odism was not the work of a single generation. 
The Holy Club of Oxford Methodists was formed 
in 1729; the rise of the United Society is dated 
1739; class meetings were instituted in 1742; 
Wesley held his first Conference with his 
preachers in 1744; he executed his Deed of 
Declaration, which fixed the legal status of 
British Wesleyan Methodism, in 1784; the same 
year the Methodist Episcopal Church in America 
was organized. Our General Conference became 
a delegated body in 1812. Our Missionary So- 
ciety was organized in 1819 ; and at various dates 
during about half a century arose the Church 
Extension, Education, Freedmen's Aid, Sunday 
School, and Tract Societies, and now these six 
great connectional bonds are verily like the six 
wings of Isaiah's seraphim; for with twain this 
modern Church of God covers her face, and with 
twain she covers her feet, and with twain she is 
ever flying. 

If, therefore, we go back a hundred years from 

iDelivered at Newburgh, N. Y., April 5, 1899. 
198 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 199 

the present we find our Methodism yet in process 
of formation. Wesley's Sermons and Fletcher's 
Checks circulated as doctrinal standards, and 
the Wesleyan hymns were singing their way into 
the hearts of men; but Richard Watson had not 
yet written his Institutes, and Clarke and Ben- 
son had not yet begun their commentaries. In 
June, 1799, when Asbury met the Conference in 
the old John Street Church, in New York city, 
George Whitefield had been sleeping for thirty 
years in his American tomb at Newburyport, and 
Calvinistic Methodism had already shrunk into 
one of the smaller Nonconformist bodies of Great 
Britain. If we inquire why it is that Arminian 
Methodism is a world-wide power to-day, while 
Calvinistic Methodism is only Wales-wide, we 
shall find the true answer mainly in the power 
and simplicity of our doctrines and in the vigor 
and effectiveness of our organization. It is a 
marvelous saying, and worthy of all admira- 
tion, that in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
there has not been a circuit or station without 
a legal pastor for a hundred years — no, not for 
an hour ! Meditate that fact, brethren, and mark 
its significance, and you will agree with me that 
"the great iron wheel," with all its hard-pressed 
wheels within a wheel, and in spite of "all the 
hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken 
against us," has proved more efficient for spread- 
ing the gospel among the people than any other 
church organization of its time. 



200 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

I am called upon at this time to speak not of 
world-wide Methodism, but of its work in a single 
Conference for the period of some three genera- 
tions. My embarrassment is to know what to 
leave out, rather than what to say. There is a 
superabundance of material at command, and I 
have accordingly been obliged to make selection 
out of many things most suitable for my pur- 
pose, and shall doubtless disappoint many of my 
friends by failing to note much that would have 
been proper to notice, and some things perhaps 
more deserving attention than those I have 
selected. 

The outline I shall follow will lead me to 
speak of the field, the message, and the mes- 
sengers, .which three things are necessarily 
associated with each other in the history of 
Methodism within the bounds of this Conference 
for the century now closing. 

The Field 

The territory of New York Conference in 1799 
included Long Island, all that part of the State 
of New York which is east of the Hudson, and 
all New England and Canada. It was arranged 
in five presiding elder districts, the largest of 
which contained fourteen appointments, and the 
smallest three (Canada). Newburgh and all New 
York west of the Hudson was connected with 
Philadelphia Conference. In those days Confer- 
ence lines were indistinct, and there was very 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 201 

little danger of any preacher's invasion of the 
parish of his neighbor. There were only 272 
traveling preachers in the whole Methodist Epis- 
copal Church — less than the number in this one 
Conference now. In the printed Minutes of 1800 
the names of Conferences, as such, appear for the 
first time, and then there were only seven in 
the United States: South Carolina, Virginia, 
Kentucky, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, 
and New England. Transfers from one Con- 
ference to another were no occasion of trouble in 
that early time. It was not until 1802 that the 
appointments of the preachers appeared in the 
printed Minutes under their proper Conference 
relations. At that date New Y'ork Conference 
had five districts: New Y^ork, Pittsfield, New 
London, Yershire, and Canada Districts, and this 
entire field was manned with seventy preachers. 
Notable changes, however, were made in 1801. 
New London and Vermont (or Vershire) Dis- 
tricts were transferred to New England Confer- 
ence, and Albany District, along with all that 
is now included in Newburgh and Kingston Dis- 
tricts, was transferred by way of compensation 
to New Y r ork Conference. The work and its 
appointments for that year appear under four 
districts, with thirty-two circuits and fifty-six 
preachers. All New Y^ork city was one circuit, 
with three preachers — Nicholas Snethen, Michael 
Coate, and Samuel Merwin. The western boun- 
daries of the Conference were enlarged in 1808 



202 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

by the addition of Cayuga District, embracing 
most of western and northern New York. In 
1810 the name of "Albany District'' was changed 
to that of "Hudson River District," and included 
the nine appointments of Albany, Albany Cir- 
cuit, Schenectady, Montgomery, Delaware, Ul- 
ster, Newburgh, New Windsor, and Ilayerstraw. 
At the same date Upper Canada District, and 
two years later all Canada, was transferred to 
Genesee Conference; but in 1811 we find a Cham- 
plain District in the north. The separate organ- 
ization of Troy Conference in 1832, and that of 
New York East Conference in 1848, greatly 
diminished the territory of New York Confer- 
ence, but since the last-named division the 
boundaries of this Conference have remained 
substantially what they are to-day. 

But the entire field which I have thus rapidly 
outlined was at the beginning of this century a 
comparatively unsettled country. New York 
city had a population of some 00,000, Boston had 
25,000, and Albany, 4,000. Newburgh and 
Kingston and Poughkeepsie were little villages. 
Outside of these, vast tracts of unbroken forest 
stretched away on every side. There was not a 
steamboat or a railroad or a telegraph or a tele- 
phone in all the land. The Methodist itinerant 
was very properly called a "circuit rider." His 
horse and saddlebags were an indispensable 
outfit, and a large part of his time was spent in 
threading forest trails to meet appointments 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 203 

twenty, thirty, forty, and even fifty miles apart. 
He would often travel all day without food for 
himself or for his horse, and at nighttime find a 
lodging place in a rude cabin, with the most 
frugal fare. 

At that time Methodism had few church build- 
ings and fewer parsonages. No reports of 
church property burdened the pages of those 
ancient Minutes. The preaching places generally 
were barns, sheds, private houses, and the open 
grove. Sometimes a schoolhouse and sometimes 
the courthouse in the larger towns were opened 
for the service. When Jesse Lee first appeared 
in Boston, in the summer of 1790, he found no 
house of worship open to him, but he preached 
to 3,000 hearers on the Common, under a famous 
elm. 

Those early itinerants were mostly excellent 
pastors. It was almost a necessity with them to 
visit from house to house. In fact, in that way 
they obtained most of their living — such as it 
was. They preached most and had their regular 
appointments, as the Discipline directed, "where 
there was the greatest number of quiet and 
willing hearers." They usually carried a Bible, 
a hymn book, and such other books and tracts 
as they were able to obtain. They found in 
most places a plain, quiet, industrious popula- 
tion, generally predisposed to welcome the com- 
ing of a real friend and a true man of God. But 
there were also mischief-makers and blasphemers 



204 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

and roughs. The congregations to which Meth- 
odism preached in the first half of this century 
were composed largely, in many cases almost al- 
together, of unconverted sinners, not, as often 
now, of blessed saints, and mostly women. The 
worst of sinners seemed to understand that they 
were always welcome to the place where the 
Methodist preacher dispensed the word of life, 
and they generally expected to be hit. 

The Message 

I pass to speak of the divine message of salva- 
tion which the Methodist itinerants carried over 
all these lands. For it is pertinent to ask, What 
business had they here? The Dutch Reformed 
Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church, the 
Congregationalists, and the Baptists were all 
established and active in this field a hundred 
years and more before the first Methodist society 
was organized in New York. Were these great 
Churches not sufficient for the full ministry of 
the Gospel in this field? 

I think we are bound as Methodists to give a 
rational answer to this question, and our apology 
for the rise and spread of Methodism in the 
bounds of New York Conference will doubtless 
answer also for its existence in other parts of 
the world. We point back at once to the pro- 
found religious experiences of the chief members 
of the Holy Club at Oxford. John Wesley was 
thirty-five years old when he entered into the 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 205 

rich experience of personal salvation and assur- 
ance of faith. He declares that he attained this 
blessed rest only after a quest and struggle of 
twenty-five years. His brother Charles found it 
three days before him. George Whitefield had 
entered into it while the Wesleys were in Georgia. 
Other members of the Holy Club experienced the 
same glorious assurance of faith. The impartial 
and sympathetic historian may behold in the soul 
struggles and triumphs of those first Methodists 
the providential preparation of a new develop- 
ment of Protestant Christianity. There was a 
new college of apostles receiving power from on 
high for a new and mighty work of God in 
modern history. To use Wesley's own words, 
"It was just at the time when we wanted little 
of filling up the measure of our iniquities, that 
two or three clergymen of the Church of Eng- 
land began vehemently to call sinners to repent- 
ance." The origin and outgoing of Methodism, 
therefore, is to be regarded as a great and mar- 
velous revival of religion. The Wesleys and 
their coadjutors were as truly raised up of God 
to do the work they did as were Luther and his 
helpers to inaugurate the Reformation of the six- 
teenth century. And all these were anointed of 
God for their great work as truly as were Paul 
and Cephas and Apollos. 

We are also of opinion that the peculiar doc- 
trines of Arminian Methodism were a providen- 
tial outfit for her mission in the world. Not 



206 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

that Methodism invented any new doctrines, but 
she was providentially directed to formulate and 
emphasize those main fundamental truths of 
Christianity which are essential to salvation, and 
to abstain from the more speculative lines of 
thought. When Methodism arose the other 
Christian Churches were not preaching a full, 
clear, practical gospel of salvation. Underneath 
all experiences and possibilities of grace Meth- 
odism recognized the universality of the atone- 
ment in Christ, the everliving presence and power 
of the Holy Ghost, and the freedom of the human 
will, and consequent personal responsibility of 
every man before God. Three things, accord- 
ingly, distinguish that system of doctrines which 
is peculiar to Arminian Methodism : 

1. Their practical character, as answering to 
the deepest needs of man's religious nature. 

2. Their necessary and successful conflict 
with the dominant Calvinism of the first half 
of this century. 

3. Their adaptation to the catholic spirit of 
the modern Christian world. 

1. First of all, Methodism emphasized the 
great truth that Christianity is spiritual life 
rather than dogma. "Our main doctrines, which 
include all the rest," said Wesley, "are repent- 
ance, faith, and holiness. The first of these we 
account, as it were, the porch of religion; the 
next is the door; the third is religion itself." 
Wesley's thirteen discourses on the Sermon on 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 207 

the Mount declare that wonderful sermon to be 
"the sum of true religion." It was long and 
persistently charged against us that we preached 
a Gospel of salvation by works; but we have as 
persistently denied the charge as an unwar- 
ranted slander. But we do glory in preaching 
a faith that works by love, according to the 
Scriptures; and our continual cry to the Chris- 
tian believer has been, "Let your light so shine 
before men, that they may see your good works, 
and glorify your Father which is in heaven." 
Herein is one of the most distinguishing features 
of Methodism. Our peculiar tenets were no new, 
strange doctrines, but old, fundamental truths, 
known from the beginning. It was the providen- 
tial mission of Methodism to select out and group 
together and proclaim to men a system of doc- 
trines that were intensely practical. The 
Methodist preacher, unlike some of his brethren 
of other creeds, never found it impracticable to 
proclaim any of his doctrines in the midst of a 
revival. None of them had the least tendency 
to "throw a coldness over the meeting." They 
were all grand, rousing truths, adapted to 
minister directly to the spiritual life, and they 
could be told so simply that a little child could 
understand them. 

At Wesley's first Conference in 1744 the first 
two days were devoted to the question of what 
should be the staple of Methodist preaching. The 
unanimous conclusion was that they should study 



208 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

to keep clear of all theological subtlety, and 
make prominent the doctrines of repentance, 
faith, justification, sanctification, and the witness 
of the Spirit. And this has been the glory of Ar- 
minian Methodism for a hundred years and more. 
If you would propagate the most salutary Chris- 
tian sociology ; if you would solve the vexed ques- 
tions of labor and capital; if you would bring 
help to the downtrodden masses and the sub- 
merged tenths of our great centers of population, 
you have but to bring to the hearts and con- 
sciences of these masses the glorious doctrines of 
the Sermon on the Mount. 

2. Additional interest attaches to the study 
of Arminian Methodism as we view it in its 
conflict with the dominant Calvinism of the 
eighteenth century and the first half of the nine- 
teenth. In this conflict we note again the 
simplicity of the Methodist way of treating doc- 
trines, as contrasted with the speculative dog- 
matics of the prevalent Calvinistic teaching of 
that period. Perhaps no more felicitous state- 
ment of the opposing points of the two systems 
exists than that made by Bishop Thomas Morris 
in his semicentennial sermon before the General 
Conference of 1864. His ministry began in the 
first quarter of this century, and at that time 
he said he found the orthodox evangelical 
Churches throughout the country maintaining in 
their common preaching, as well as in their 
written creeds, the "Five Points of Calvinism," 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 209 

so called, namely : 1. Total depravity ; 2. Uncon- 
ditional election; 3. Limited atonement; 4. Ef- 
fectual calling; and 5. Final, infallible perse- 
verance of the saints. "And fifty years ago," 
said he, "the Church that did not subscribe to 
these points of doctrine was scarcely recognized 
as a Church of God. But Methodism came along 
and shed light upon these dark points. She 
presented her five points, which we think are 
better, namely : 1. All men are sinners ; 2. All 
men are redeemed; 3. All men are called; 4. As 
many as obey the call are chosen; 5. Of those 
thus chosen such as endure to the end shall be 
saved." And the Bishop added : "Methodist doc- 
trine has fixed a deep, lasting, and general im- 
pression upon the Protestant Christianity of the 
times and has greatly modified the views of 
other branches of the Christian Church. Do you 
know any Church in these days where the five 
points of Calvinism are plainly and pointedly and 
fully taught? If you do, you know more than I do. 
But, on the other hand, the five points of Meth- 
odism, in substance, are preached in most of the 
evangelical Churches, and the people joyfully re- 
ceive them." 

I am aware that some of our Calvinistic 
brethren stoutly deny any such effect of Armin- 
ian Methodism on the Calvinistic Churches of 
this country. Well, let them so think. I re- 
member that not long ago a prominent leader 
in one of their great assemblies said : "Brethren, 



210 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

a few among us seem to be straight and positive 
Calvinists; but others are only Calvinistic, and 
others, alas, are barely Calvinistical !" We all 
know too that a mighty struggle has in recent 
years been going on in one of the most powerful 
bodies of our land to revise those portions of its 
creed and confession which evidently, as the 
Methodist fathers put it, "lean too much toward 
Calvinism." Eight years after Bishop Morris 
preached the sermon just referred to, Dr. Howard 
Crosby, as fraternal delegate from the Presby- 
terian Church of the United States, declared be- 
fore our General Conference in Brooklyn : "I re- 
joice to believe that when God sent the Methodist 
Episcopal Church into America that Church was 
called and elected to put fervor and activity 
into the Presbyterian Church, and it has made 
its calling and election sure." 

3. I must also notice briefly the adaptation 
of the Methodist theology to the demands and 
the catholic spirit of the modern Christian world. 
I believe that the system of religious thought 
which has any promise of real progress and 
triumph in the future must be positive, and yet 
liberal. It must take fast hold on God the Father 
Almighty, on the one hand, and on the other it 
must accord due attention to the nature, the 
needs, and the rights of man. There is a ten- 
dency in some quarters to magnify God by mini- 
fying man ; there is also the opposite extreme of 
deifying man by ignoring the personality of God. 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 211 

Results obtained in either of these ways can 
never satisfy the heart and soul and mind of 
beings filled with personal intimations of im- 
mortality. But first, last, fundamental, and 
positive, as characteristic of the very life of 
Methodism, is her firm hold on the supernatural 
Her abiding watchword for living or for dying 
is, "The best of all is, God is with us!" 

A further explanation of the power and success 
of Methodism is its compatibility with the true 
catholic spirit. It is not strange that thousands 
have gone out of our ranks to swell the member- 
ship of other Churches. And we ought not to 
feel sad or sorry that we are able to fill so many 
of the pulpits and pews of other denominations. 
Some twenty-five years ago, when I was a pastor 
in New York, I found that six of the most famous 
pulpits of as many different Churches in that 
city were manned by ex-Methodist preachers. 

Among the sermons of John Wesley we find 
one entitled "A Caution Against Bigotry," fol- 
lowed immediately by another on "The Catholic 
Spirit." In the first of these he says : "What if 
I were to see a Papist, an Arian, a Socinian 
casting out devils? If I did, I could not forbid 
even him, without convicting myself of bigotry. 
Yea, if it could be supposed that I should see 
a Jew, a Deist, or a Turk doing the same, were 
I to forbid him, either directly or indirectly, I 
should be no better than a bigot still." Wesley 
was accustomed to boast of the liberality of 



212 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

Methodism. We do not impose human opinions, 
he argued, as a test of membership in our so- 
cieties. "One condition, and one only, is 
required," he writes, "a real desire to save their 
souls. Where that is, it is enough. We ask 
only, 'Is thy heart herein as my heart? If it be, 
give me thy hand.' Where," he asks, "is there 
any such society in Europe or in the habitable 
world? I know none." In his Journal of May, 
1788, he writes: "There is no other religious 
society under heaven which requires of men, in 
order to their admission into it, nothing but a 
desire to save their souls. . . . The Methodists 
alone do not insist on your holding this or that 
opinion; but they think and let think. ... I do 
not know any other religious society, either 
ancient or modern, wherein such liberty of con- 
science is now allowed, since the age of the 
apostles. Here is our glorying; and a glorying 
peculiar to us. What society shares it with us?" 
It must not be supposed from these utterances, 
however, that either Wesley or his followers 
made light of doctrinal opinions. On the con- 
trary, they put great stress on the basal truths 
of religion, and enforced them everywhere. But 
the simplicity of their own chief doctrines, and 
their confidence that they needed only a fair 
hearing to be generally accepted, made them 
perfectly willing to allow all reasonable liberties 
of thought. Hence that noble utterance in the 
Minutes of the first Conference: "What are we 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 213 

afraid of? Of overturning our first principles? 
If they are false, the sooner they are overturned 
the better." These words are a motto and a 
declaration of primitive Methodism, worthy to 
be inscribed in letters of gold over the doorway 
of every hall of science, of criticism, of phi- 
losophy, and of religion. May none of us ever see 
the day when the leaders or the governing 
bodies of Methodism presume to erect a dogmatic 
hedge of human opinions around the rights of 
scientific criticism and devout research in any 
department of learning ! 

Perhaps I ought not to pass from this state- 
ment of the peculiar message of Methodism 
without a distinct disclaiming that we Methodists 
of to-day presume to enjoy a monopoly of the 
precious doctrines we delight to preach. We 
rejoice that the great Protestant Churches of 
our time are moving on to the same ideal, and 
proclaiming the doctrines of repentance and 
faith and sanctification much after our fashion. 
We hail the dawn of a better day, when we shall 
all come into a unity of faith and sentiment so 
pure and deep and catholic that whatever we 
boast of in the way of simple, saving truth shall 
be the common property and glory of the holy 
Church universal. 

The Messengers 

I hasten on to speak of some of the chief 
actors in this Methodist drama of a hundred 



214 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

years. I shrink from the attempt, for I know 
that I shall fail to mention many honored names 
that are worthy to rank with any of those I 
shall refer to. But the task is too great and the 
honored names too many for the limits of this 
hour. 

At the Conference of 1799 Williain Thatcher 
was received in full connection, and has left us 
a written statement which I deem appropriate to 
read : "About a dozen of us Methodist preachers 
landed in New York, and made our way to the 
old headquarters in John Street. We were horse- 
back men. . . . Not a spice of dandyism was seen 
in all our borders, any more than leaven in a 
Jewish Passover. . . . We were soon disposed of. 
My home was with a good old Welsh brother, 
named John Davies. On June 19 a new scene 
opened to my view, a Conference at the old hive of 
Methodism, the old John Street meetinghouse. 
What a congregation of Methodist preachers! 
what greeting! what love beaming in every eye! 
what gratulation! what rejoicing! what solem- 
nity! The clock strikes nine. We are seated in 
the sanctuary, in Conference order, around the 
sacred altar, within which sits the venerable 
Asbury, Bible in hand. A chapter read, a hymn 
sung, we kneel. How solemn, how awful, how 
devout the prayer! What solemn aniens are re- 
sponded! Inspiration seemed to pervade the 
whole. The prayer closed, we arise, and are 
seated. The secretary calls the list of names; 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 215 

each responds; and how interesting to hear my 
own name in that book of life!" There are, I 
doubt not, several members of this Conference 
who remember William Thatcher, whose saintly 
old age was a living epistle of goodness. 

It is interesting to note, further, that, at the 
Conference of 1799, Joshua Soule was received 
on probation, and Lorenzo Dow was continued 
on trial for a second year. It would be difficult 
to name two characters more unlike than the 
sober, stately Soule, with lofty forehead and 
commanding presence, dignified and almost 
pompous in manner, cautious and conservative 
in speech, and Lorenzo the Eccentric, heroic in 
spirit, but perverted in his brains, combining 
all those elements of a first-class crank which 
too many Methodist preachers have always been 
prone to lionize. Lorenzo Dow's application for 
admission on trial was rejected by one or two 
Conferences previous to his reception, although 
there were good men among those fathers who 
pleaded for him with strong crying and tears. 
It is marvelous how the Methodist system of 
itinerancy has taken up and, for a time at least, 
utilized men of unmanageable idiosyncrasy. 
Dow's name appears in the Minutes of 1798 and 
1799, disappears in 1800, reappears again in 
1801, and thereafter disappears from the official 
records of Methodism. But he continued for 
more than thirty years thereafter to move about 
like a wandering star, a most singular mixture 



216 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

of sense and nonsense, an incorrigible erratic, 
attracting hundreds by his oddities. 

But the regal Joshua Soule waxed mighty in 
the confidence of the brethren, and became a 
master spirit and leader of the Methodism of the 
first half of this century. He was elected bishop 
in 1820, but resigned the office because of certain 
resolutions passed by the General Conference 
touching the election of presiding elders, which 
he believed to be unconstitutional. He and 
Bishop McKendree became the closest friends. 
Four years later he was again elected bishop, 
and was probably at that time the most influen- 
tial personality in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. He maintained his preeminence in the 
episcopal office, and in 1811 took sides with the 
Southern section of the Church, and continued 
a bishop of the Church South until his death 
in 1867. He and his beloved McKendree now 
sleep side by side in honored graves in the campus 
of Vanderbilt University. 

I next mention two heroes of the early time 
whose names go well together — Freeborn Gar- 
rettson and Nathan Bangs. Garrettson was 
twenty-six years older than Bangs, and was 
ordained elder at the Christmas Conference of 
1781, when the Methodist Episcopal Church was 
organized. Four years later he was commis- 
sioned by Asbury to pioneer and evangelize the 
Hudson River valley. It seemed to him a heavy 
burden, and he took it to the Lord in prayer. 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 217 

"It seemed," he says, "as if the whole country 
up the North River, as far as Lake Champlaiii, 
east and west, was open to my view." Except 
the Ashgrove society, in the far wilderness north 
of Albany, Methodism had at that time done 
no work north of Westchester County. Garrett- 
son selected nine young men for his assistants, 
gave them directions where to begin and how to 
proceed in organizing societies, and even went 
so far as to appoint times and places of holding 
quarterly meetings before ever one society, much 
less one Quarterly Conference, had a local habi- 
tation or a name. Thus he planned a vast dis- 
trict, and announced his plan before the immense 
territory had even been explored. The result 
was the formation of six circuits, reaching from 
New Rochelle to Lake Champlain. 

It was in the year 1799 that Nathan Bangs, 
then twenty-one years old, went to Canada as 
a teacher and surveyor, and spent three years in 
those employments. In 1802 he was received on 
trial in this Conference, and for six years there- 
after traveled the wild frontier regions of Upper 
and Lower Canada. His subsequent career was 
that of a most commanding leadership. With 
one exception, he was a member of every General 
Conference from 1808 to 1856. In 1820 he was 
elected book agent, and he at the same time, 
and for eight years thereafter, edited the Meth- 
odist Magazine, and later on the Quarterly Re- 
view. He started The Christian Advocate and 



218 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

Journal in 182G; he was the chief founder of 
our Missionary Society and wrote its constitu- 
tion, and for the first sixteen years of its history 
he was its vice-president, secretary, and treas- 
urer, and wrote its annual reports; and he did 
all this gratuitously, in addition to all his other 
work. In 1836 he was formally appointed mis- 
sionary secretary, and held the office for five 
years, w T hen he was called to the presidency of 
Wesleyan University. That position he resigned 
at the end of one year, feeling it was not his 
proper place. He then returned to pastoral work 
in New York, and for twenty years thereafter 
was one of the most familiar and beloved figures 
seen on the streets of the great city. Besides his 
editorial work and all the early publications of 
the Missionary Society, he was the author of 
more than a dozen goodly volumes, among which 
are four volumes of a history of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

In connection with the honored names of Gar- 
rettson and Bangs I may well make mention of 
Billy Hibbard. When his name was called in 
Conference as William Hibbard he made no 
answer. "Is not that your name?" asked the 
Bishop. "No, sir," said he. "What is it, then?" 
"Billy Hibbard." "O," said the Bishop, "that is 
a little boy's name." "Well," replied Billy, "I 
was a very little boy when my father gave it to 
me." Some one objected to him, that he practiced 
medicine; but he said: "I am not a physician; I 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 219 

simply give advice in critical cases." "What do 
you mean by that?" asked the Bishop. "O, in 
critical cases," said Hibbard, "I always advise 
them to send for a doctor." 

This eccentric man was wont to tell his 
brethren that twenty-six sermons a month was 
only moderate labor ; but when it came to twelve 
sermons a week, and no rest day to go home and 
visit his family, it seemed a little hard. He was 
a man greatly beloved among his brethren and 
by good people everywhere. But he had his 
persecutions. "Some days," he says, "when 
riding to my appointments, I was almost all the 
way in tears, often inquiring of the Lord, What 
can I do to save these souls from delusion? 
Some threw stones at me, and some set their 
dogs on me as I rode along; but the Lord de- 
fended me. I never had a stone to hit me nor a 
dog to bite me. Some threatened to whip me; 
but I escaped them all." His end was beautifully 
peaceful, and in his dying hour he said: "My 
mind is calm as summer's eve." 

A very different style of man was Daniel 
Ostrander, whose ministry covered a period of 
fifty years (1793-1843). Only three Sabbaths in 
all that time was he unable to preach, and not 
once during the half century did he fail to answer 
to his name at the roll call of his Conference. 
He was a member of nine successive General 
Conferences (1804-36). He had high reputation 
for integrity, sound judgment, solid piety, and 



220 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

for the commendable virtue of being always 
at bis post. His friend and associate for eight 
and forty years said, "I have heard him preach, 
with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, till 
the shouts of saints and the cries of penitents 
completely drowned the highest strain of his 
stentorian voice" ( Minutes of 1844 ) . 

Upon the organization of Troy Conference in 
1832, and of New York East Conference in 1848, 
a large number of noted persons passed from 
the membership of this Conference. Several of 
them, however, afterward returned to us. Among 
the charter members of Troy Conference we find 
the names of Tobias Spicer, P. G. Hibbard, Buell 
Goodsell, J. Z. Nichols, Coles Carpenter, P. C. 
Oakley, S. D. Ferguson, J. W. B. Wood, and 
J. B. Stratten. Some of these appear also among 
the charter members of New York East Confer- 
ence in 1848. And there we also find the dis- 
tinguished names of Stephen Olin, Seymour 
Landon, Heman Bangs, John M. Reid, James 
Floy, and Daniel Curry. I cannot pause to 
speak of these. Their names are immortalized 
in the annals of Methodism, as well as written 
in the book of life. 

Along with these honored names are associ- 
ated in my thought a score of noble preachers 
not a whit behind their contemporaries in re- 
markable labors and in fidelity to sacred trusts. 
There were William Phoebus, Elijah Woolsey, 
Stephen Martindale, Aaron Hunt, William 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 221 

Jewett, Peter P. Sanford, Ebenezer Washburn, 
Samuel Luckey, Robert Seney, and Benjamin 
Griffin. 

I must linger a moment over the name of 
Phineas Rice. The traditions and legends of 
that remarkable man fill the whole Hudson val- 
ley, and have traveled into the far West and 
South. Stately and pompous in movement as 
Joshua Soule, funny as Billy Hibbard, and witty 
as Jesse Lee ; faithful to trust and wise in counsel 
as Daniel Ostrander; imperturbable in temper, 
sagacious, beloved and honored by all his 
brethren; unboundedly popular with the masses 
of the people ; jovial in spirit, yet often solemnly 
severe, he could move vast audiences as with 
the wand of a magician, from tears to laughter, 
and from laughter back again to tears. 

With all his eccentricities and humor, he was 
a most commanding personality. His most in- 
timate friends were impressed with the fervor 
and length of his private devotions. His min- 
istry extended without a break over the period 
of fifty-four years. He died in this city the 
year this Trinity Church was erected. He took 
much interest in its erection, but was unable 
to attend the dedication. But when a friend 
reported to him the ceremonies of the occasion, 
he said, with a deep pathos in his voice : "I have 
a house of God, a building not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens." 

One of Rice's warmest and most devoted 



222 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

friends was Marvin Richardson, that graceful 
gentleman and faithful minister of God, Avhoin 
many of us so well remember. Gentle in spirit, 
tender in brotherly regard, noble and beautiful 
in face and form, he lived to be the most vener- 
able patriarch of this Conference, attending its 
annual sessions regularly for more than sixty 
years. 

Others of that generation, though somewhat 
younger, were J. B. Beach, George Coles, O. V. 
Ammerman, Fitch Reed, Ira Ferris, Eli Dennis- 
ton, William M. Chipp, Valentine Buck, and 
Ananias Ackerly. Who that ever heard him 
preach could forget Aaron Rogers, the man of 
seraphic spirit and magnetic voice, whose bold 
imagination and wordy eloquence were wont to 
move great congregations as a forest is shaken 
by a mighty wind? In manner most opposite 
was pious Elbert Osborn, with strange impedi- 
ment of speech, but with a sanctified life and a 
zeal for saving men not easily surpassed in all 
the catalogues of saints. And there was the 
quiet, steady, conservative Alonzo F. Selleck, 
and his more scholarly son, John Wesley, lately 
departed to the heavenly home. And there was 
A. M. Osbon, the masterly debater, with a mind 
of marvelous versatility, a clear and rapid 
thinker, a fearless defender of whatever he be- 
lieved to be the truth. Twenty years ago, at 
the session of the Conference held in this church, 
he preached his semicentennial sermon. The 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 223 

older members of the Conference remember 
vividly his skill and power. 

I must not fail to speak of Paul R. Brown, 
one of the noblest examples of Christian man- 
hood I have ever known. He was persecuted for 
his conscientious convictions on the subject of 
human slavery, and publicly censured by an al- 
most unanimous vote of this Conference in 1838. 
But he declared that he could starve and rot 
upon a dunghill rather than violate his con- 
science and withhold the truth. Great was his 
triumph when the Conference in 1873 unani- 
mously and enthusiastically reversed the former 
vote of censure, and declared him to be "one of 
the pioneers of the holy cause." Twenty-one 
years ago he preached his semicentennial, and 
with a glory such as might have shone on 
Stephen's face proclaimed the triumph of human 
freedom and of righteousness which he had lived 
to witness. 

And there was Joseph B. Wakeley, valiant de- 
fender of the Methodist faith and the Methodist 
fathers, himself recognized as a kind of father 
even among his older brethren. His florid coun- 
tenance, genial humor, graceful bearing, manly 
spirit, and blameless piety made him a universal 
favorite. How gloriously triumphant was his 
departure from this mortal life! "I shall be no 
stranger in heaven," said he. "I am well known 
up there. Death has no sting for me. Roll open, 
ye golden gates, and let my car go through !" 



224 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

I should like to speak at length of my dear 
friend, J. W. Breakey, who died during the 
session of the Conference of 1867, saving in his 
last hours: "I behold Him, I behold Him! I 
behold my Redeemer! I shall take a city ap- 
pointment this year in the New Jerusalem!" 
There too was sturdy Nathan H. Bangs, who 
gently fell on sleep during the Conference of 
1884. And there was O. P. Matthews, who more 
than any other man probed my conscience about 
a call to preach the gospel. And there were 
William Goss and Charles Gorse, the two bro- 
thers who spelled and pronounced their names 
differently, but who honored alike the family 
traditions and the gospel of the common faith. 
I would fain speak of L. M. Vincent, long the 
faithful custodian of the preachers' funds, and 
of W. C. Smith, the devoted friend and servant 
of the temperance cause ; of W. S. Bouton, O. R. 
Bouton, Gideon Draper, Charles R. North, L. W. 
Walsworth, George Hearn, and Thomas W. 
Chadwick, "names ever loved and dear"; of 
Thomas Carter, faithful and accomplished mis- 
sionary among our Spanish peoples in America, 
and of James Birch, the man of genuine Irish 
wit, but mightier far in prayer and exhortation; 
of D. L. Marks, the generous, noble friend; of 
Sanford I. Ferguson, the modest, unpretending, 
quiet minister of rare good sense and beautiful 
and blameless life; of E. L. Prentice, who was 
translated from among us all too soon ; of J. K. 



CENTENNIAL NEW YORK CONF. 225 

Wardle, lately crowned; of Charles S. Brown, 
the careful manager of all details of work; of 
W. D. Fero, unselfish, trustful, hopeful, gentle 
spirit, "an Israelite indeed, in whom there was 
no guile"; and Joseph Holditch, "the old man 
beautiful." I would fain say many things of 
Jeremiah Millard, than whom no laborer more 
efficient, no pastor more variously useful, no 
brother more affectionate and faithful ever toiled 
among us. And I would speak of Francis Bot- 
tome, Joel Croft, G. D. Townsend, Silas Fitch, 
A. H. Ferguson, W. P. Abbott, and George S. 
Hare, all of them names to be held in highest 
honor. And there was Thomas Ellis, the Welsh- 
man, who first inclined me toward the Methodist 
Church; and there was O. G. Hedstrom, the 
Swede, who, my mother used to tell me, called 
at our humble home when I was an infant, took 
me in his arms, and put his hands upon me 
and blessed me, and prayed that I might live to 
be a comfort to her declining years. But it is 
impossible for me to mention all I would. There 
was no man ever enrolled in this Conference 
who inspired me with higher ambitions than did 
John McClintock. Scarcely second to him in 
like influence was George R. Crooks; and per- 
haps more than both of them did noble, generous, 
good John Miley seem to me a father in Christ, 
an elder brother, an abiding friend. And how 
I miss to-day the genial face of Albert D. Vail, 
that true and steadfast yokefellow, with whom 



226 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

so many of us have taken sweetest counsel and 
walked in the house of God in company. And 
there was yet another, Henry B. Ridgaway, who 
for fourteen years occupied the most conspicuous 
pulpits of this Conference, and who has only 
lately fallen by my side. Heroic as a martyr of 
the faith, affectionate as a little child, beauti- 
fully transparent in character and life as that 
disciple whom the Master loved. During the last 
ten years of his life we were providentially led 
into closest fellowship in a new and choice field 
of labor, and since he left us the world has to me 
seemed strangely lonesome. 

I had not intended to speak of those now living 
who are or once were members of this Confer- 
ence. But may I not appropriately name these 
seven who were elected to the episcopal office? 
Beverly TVaugh, in 1836; Edmund S. Janes, in 
1844; Davis W. Clark, in 1864; Randolph S. 
Foster, in 1872; Cyrus D. Foss, in 1880; John P. 
Newman, in 1888; and Charles C. McCabe, in 
1896. The four of these last named yet abide 
among us to adorn the goodly company of our 
most honored leaders; they reap the fruits of 
the golden autumn of a brilliant, able, and effi- 
cient ministry. The senior of the three, crowned 
with the glory of a saintly age, his eye undimmed, 
and his intellectual force yet mighty, stands like 
another Moses on the top of Pisgah, ready for 
any summons of his Lord. 

But time compels me to close this catalogue of 



CENTENNIAL NEW YOEK CONF. 227 

worthies. I may not speak of all those whom 
affection summons to my thought as having 
passed out from us in most recent times. It 
would be unpardonable, however, for me to con- 
clude this address without a reference to that 
great triumvirate who, when I first knew them, 
stood in the very forefront of this Conference, 
and who all seem to have only lately gone from 
among us. William H. Ferris, Lucius H. King, 
and Morris D'C. Crawford were men of striking 
individuality, but differing in many ways. 
Brutus and Ca?sar and Antony were more alike 
than they. There were times when they stood 
very close together, and there were times, alas, 
when they stood far apart. I can see Ferris 
now, prepossessing and commanding in figure, 
with eagle eye, incisive argument, and clarion 
voice. King was more open, persistent, mag- 
netic, overflowing with generous impulses, and 
often telling his brethren that he was called to 
preach "illustrated sermons." Crawford, though 
younger in years than Ferris, was earlier in the 
ministry, and seemed a sort of patriarch among 
the three. Sound in judgment, wise in counsel, 
faithful in administration, he was more thor- 
oughly and conspicuously identified with all the 
interests of New York Methodism than any other 
man of the last half century. Noble, deserving, 
venerable men! 

How dreamlike through the mist of years 
Each well-remembered face appears! 



228 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

Along with all our blessed dead, they now ap- 
pear transfigured in the heavenly mountains. In 
those heavenly places the darkling mists of earth 
are cleared away, and our ascended fathers and 
brethren all "stand without fault before the 
throne of God." 

Thus now, touching the planting and out- 
growth of Methodism in New York Conference, 
I have spoken of the field, the message, and 
the messengers. There are perhaps a hundred 
living members of this body, beloved by reason 
of former precious fellowship, of whom I could 
speak in terms of eulogy and affection as ten- 
derly as I have spoken of the sainted dead. To 
the young men of the Conference I would also 
fain appeal to be strong and of good courage, 
workmen that need not be ashamed, worthy of 
the mantles of ascended fathers. But I should 
have the good sense to stop just here. And I 
will only add, in words of holy writ : "The God 
of peace, that brought again from the dead our 
Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 
through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
make you perfect in every good work to do his 
will, working in you that which is well pleasing 
in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whoin be 
glory forever and ever." 




Professor Terry at Seventy 



X 

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 

"Ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the 
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the gen- 
eral assembly and church of the firstborn who 
are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of 
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 
and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, 
and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh 
better than that of Abel" (Heb. 12. 22-24). 

The subject presented in these impressive 
words, and illustrated and enhanced by every 
expression here employed, is the communion of 
saints. This phrase is a familiar one. We are 
accustomed to repeat the Apostles' Creed, and 
to say, "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy 
catholic Church — the communion of saints" ; and 
while essays and volumes have been written to 
explain the Holy Ghost, and the holy catholic 
Church, comparatively little is said or written 
to explain the significance of the "communion of 
saints." Some think it is the same in meaning 
as "the holy catholic Church," and it may be 
admitted that it is difficult to think of any com- 
munion or fellowship of saints apart from some 
concept of a holy community or church. It is 
easy, however, to distinguish between the church 

229 



230 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

as an organized body or congregation of wor- 
shipers, and the sense of common religious fel- 
lowship and unity of purpose which binds the 
membership together. One may also think and 
speak of the church as local, even a church in 
one's own separate house, or as a holy Church 
universal, broad as the world and the ages. The 
scripture I have taken for a text speaks of "the 
general assembly and church of the first born," 
and of "the spirits of just men made perfect." 
This would certainly seem to include the saints 
of all the ages, whether in the earth below or 
in the heavens above. We must, I think, adjust 
our interpretation to this wider and higher 
conception. 

Our text is notably expressive of a very ex- 
tensive range of holy associations. We are told 
of a "heavenly Jerusalem," and of "hosts of 
angels," and of a church "enrolled in heaven," 
and of "God the Judge of all," and the "mediator 
Jesus," and "the spirits of just men made per- 
fect." These allusions lift our thoughts at once 
into the heavenly realms. But the opening 
words — "Ye are come," and the mention of "the 
mediator" and the "blood of sprinkling" indi- 
cate, rather, a present experience, realized at 
the time by the persons to whom this epistle 
was addressed. Expositors have differed in 
opinion as to the primary reference of these ex- 
pressive clauses ; but when we consider the whole 
argument of this epistle to the Hebrews, and 



THE COMMUNION OP SAINTS 231 

meditate on such statements as "we are the house- 
hold of God," "we have boldness to enter into 
the Holy of holies by the blood of Jesus, by a 
new and living way," and "we are compassed 
about" by the saints of former ages as by "a 
great cloud of witnesses" ; and when we are told 
that Jesus himself is our present great High 
Priest and Leader, "the author and perfecter 
of our faith," we may well conclude that the 
primary reference of this text is to a present 
possible realization of the gracious blessings 
specified. We do well also to call to mind a 
saying of Paul in one of his epistles : "Things 
which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which 
entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever 
things God prepared for them that love him . . . 
God hath revealed unto us through the Spirit; 
for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep 
things of God" (1 Cor. 2. 9, 10). But, of course, 
new knowledge and continual revelations will 
come to us in the future ages of ages. And so, 
as an usher at the door of a great temple of 
countless treasures may welcome the pilgrim as 
he enters, and say, "You have now come to this 
vast treasure house of wonders : the great collec- 
tions are before you ; enter and explore them as 
you desire," so this scripture says to us, "Ye are 
come to the precincts of God's heavenly temple, 
and its inexhaustible treasures are before you." 
Current sentiment and traditional theology 
have magnified the concept of a local heaven. 



232 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

Some religions tell us of seven heavens and seven 
hells, graded in ascending or descending stories 
of blessedness or misery, and I have heard many 
a Christian sing of "the far-away home of the 
soul." But these ideas are not in accord with 
the main element of New Testament suggestions 
touching this interesting subject. Our text, as 
we have observed, seems to imply that the saints 
on earth, and the spirits of just men made per- 
fect, and the angels, and Christ and God are 
associated together in a very vital fellowship. 
The notable catalogue of Old Testament worthies 
mentioned in the preceding chapter are con- 
ceived as a surrounding multitude of witnesses 
to a faith in things hoped for but not seen. 
They possessed "an assurance of things hoped 
for/' an evidence or "conviction of things not 
seen" by fleshly eyes. Paul speaks familiarly of 
his transition from earthly to heavenly life, as 
if it were a simple thing, involving no long 
journey. For him to be absent from the body 
was to be at home with the Lord. He expressed 
a desire to depart and be with Christ as some- 
thing very far better than to abide in the flesh. 
On one occasion he found himself caught up 
even to the third heaven, into paradise, and heard 
unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a 
man to utter, and yet he was unable to say 
whether he was in the body or out of the body! 
According to this statement, one may be in the 
body and in the third heaven at one and the 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 233 

same time. In harmony with such ideas, we sing 

with Wesley: 

"Come, let us join our friends above 

Who have obtained the prize, 
And on the eagle wings of love 
To joys celestial rise." 

Such a communion of saints is not a matter of 
physical locality, but a fellowship of kindred 
spirits. 

With this general idea of what is meant by 
the communion of saints we shall proceed in a 
somewhat analytical and expository way to con- 
sider the several clauses of our text. First, we 
observe how the whole subject is enhanced by 

Allusions to Sacred Places 
"Ye are come/' says the writer, "unto mount 
Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the 
heavenly Jerusalem." Zion was the name of the 
chief mountain on which the great city of Jeru- 
salem was builded, and the city itself by reason 
of its many hallowed associations was called the 
city of the living God. The Hebrew psalmists 
tell us that "Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion 
more than all the dwellings of Jacob." "For 
Jehovah hath chosen Zion, he hath desired it for 
his habitation." "Beautiful for situation, the 
joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, the city 
of the great King." But the writer of this 
epistle does not mean to tell his readers that 
they had come to Jerusalem as Jewish pilgrims. 
He employs these names of sacred localities as 



234 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

representative of covenants. He contrasts 
Mount Sinai, where the law was given through 
Moses, and Mount Zion, whence the gospel of 
Jesus went forth to evangelize the world. And 
so we read in the immediate context, "Ye are 
not come to a mount that might be touched, and 
that burned with fire, and unto blackness, and 
darkness, and tempest; but ye are come unto 
Mount Zion." The same contrast is presented 
in Paul's epistle to the Galatians, where Sarah 
the free woman* and Hagar the bondmaid of 
Abraham represent allegorically the two dis- 
pensations of the law and the gospel. "Hagar 
is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to the 
Jerusalem that now is: for she is in bondage 
with her children. But the Jerusalem that is 
above is free, which is our mother." But more 
sublimely still does John's Apocalypse portray 
"the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out 
of heaven from God, made ready as a bride 
adorned for her husband." It is remarkable 
that he saw the holy city coming clown out of 
heaven, but he did not see it go up again. And 
he heard a great voice out of the throne saying: 
"Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and 
he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his 
people, and God himself shall be with them and 
be their God." 

The mention of these hallowed names of places 
would naturally awaken in the minds of the 
Hebrews emotions of tender memory. With what 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 235 

patriotic rapture did the Jewish pilgrims go up 
unto the house of Jehovah, and stand "within 
thy gates, O Jerusalem!" That was the holy 
city of their fathers. There mighty kings had 
reigned. There holy prophets had uttered their 
oracles of God. And where is the Christian who 
would not participate deeply in the same reli- 
gious feeling? Never, never can Jew or Chris- 
tian forget thee, O Jerusalem ! But this tender 
feeling is given to attaching itself to many other 
sacred places. How many have journeyed to 
Mount Sinai in Arabia and felt there as nowhere 
else the solemn grandeur of the lawgiving of 
Moses ! How many have stood on Mars' Hill at 
Athens and there appreciated as nowhere else 
the wisdom of the great apostle to the Gentiles ! 
How many have stood before the old church in 
Wittenberg, where Luther nailed his revolu- 
tionary theses, and felt their hearts kindle with 
a secret fire! Other tender memories attach to 
other sacred spots : a mother's grave, a well-worn 
mountain pathway, where you w T alked in blessed 
fellowship with a loving friend whose footsteps 
press upon this earth no more, that well-re- 
membered room where happy hours and plighted 
love and golden hopes indulged their magic spell. 
In like manner religious emotions and memories 
of holiest hours attach to the place of one's con- 
version, or to the hallowed spot of some rich and 
rare experience in personal communion with God. 
And so in ways innumerable may the communion 



23G BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

of saints be enhanced by its connections with 
holy places. 

Our text speaks next of coming into com- 
munion and fellowship with beings of a sup- 
posedly higher order, 

Innumerable Hosts of Angels 

Sacred places fascinate and charm us, but 
sacred persons more. Angels of God are re- 
markably prominent in the records of Holy 
Scripture, and this epistle to the Hebrews in- 
quires in a manner that implies no contradic- 
tion, but, rather, a common and universal 
acceptation : "Are they not all ministering spirits, 
sent forth to do service for the sake of them that 
shall inherit salvation?" These angels are mes- 
sengers of the Almighty. They appear often in 
the traditions of the ancient patriarchs. In 
Jacob's dream at Bethel he saw a ladder extend- 
ing from the earth into the heavens, "and behold, 
the angels of God ascending and descending on 
it." The angel of Jehovah marched in a pillar 
of cloud and of fire before the Israelites in their 
journeys through the desert. The Hebrew 
psalmists sing : "The angel of Jehovah encampeth 
round about them that fear him, and delivereth 
them." "He will give his angels charge over 
thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." Our Lord 
speaks of angels carrying Lazarus away into 
Abraham's bosom, and he told his disciples that 
if he were to ask him, his Father would send 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 237 

more than twelve legions of angels to defend him. 
Surely, nothing is more apparent in the Scrip- 
tures than the doctrine and belief of an innumer- 
able company of angels, acting as ministering 
spirits and messengers of the Most High. 

There are modern teachers not a few who 
maintain that all these biblical portraitures of 
angels are but a popular way of affirming the 
immanent presence and activity of God in all 
this world. Thus, when at the prayer of Elisha 
the Lord opened the eyes of the young man to 
behold the mountain full of horses and chariots 
of fire round about the prophet, the vision was 
but an impressive lesson that Jehovah was im- 
mediately present and abundantly able to dis- 
concert and bring to naught the enemies of 
Israel. Did not Jesus go to pains to teach that 
God himself clothes the grass of the field, watches 
the lilies as they grow, feeds the birds of the 
air, watches with tender feeling every sparrow 
that falleth to the ground, and even numbers 
the hairs of our head? If our heavenly Father's 
immanence in all the world is such as this im- 
plies, we need not be overmuch concerned about 
the way he performs all his wonderful works. 
One may be excused for preferring God's im- 
mediate presence and personal watchfulness, 
even to the numbering of the hairs of our headj 
and his direct bearing witness with our spirits 
that he is ever with us nearer than we can think, 
rather than the ministry of twelve legions of 



238 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

angels. But why not accept the immanent 
ministries of both God and angels? One of our 
English poets says, 

Millions of spiritual beings walk this earth, 
Unseen, whether we wake or whether we sleep. 

When the modern scientist assures us that the 
minutest particle of matter which we can dis- 
cern only by a powerful microscope is yet 
divisible into innumerable lesser atoms which no 
human eye can see, and that each of these in- 
visible atoms is alive with intrinsic energy, we 
surely need not stagger over the concept of an 
innumerable host of angels sent forth to minister 
to the heirs of God's great salvation. 

Some poets have fondly fancied that each 
human being has his one guardian angel to 
watch his footsteps from "the wicket gate of 
life" unto his exit from this world. But why 
one angel for each soul when there are such 
innumerable hosts? Twelve angels or twelve 
legions of them are ever at the command of our 
Father who is in all the heavens. 

The General Assembly and Church of the 
Firstborn 

Next comes the mention of a company of choice 
spirits, more dear, I think, to the Christian heart 
than the innumerable hosts of angels. Ye are 
come "to the general assembly and church of 
the firstborn, whose names are enrolled in 
heaven." The Greek word translated "general 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 239 

assembly" was used to designate an assembly of 
the whole nation or people. We employ the 
word itself in such compounds as Pan-American, 
Pan-Anglican, Pan-African. This pan-assembly 
and church of primogenial saints is in the 
highest sense the holy catholic Church. "The 
faithful of each clime and age this glorious 
church compose." The glorious honor of this 
great company is designated by two remarkable 
phrases : they are a church "of the firstborn," 
and they are "enrolled in heaven." These state- 
ments would have peculiar fascination for a 
Hebrew reader. The firstborn in a Hebrew 
household held with his preeminence a corre- 
sponding dignity and honor. He naturally suc- 
ceeded his father in control of the estate and 
inherited a double portion. But in this great 
assembly of the saints every member is thought 
of as a firstborn child. But not only is such 
ideal distinction of primogeniture assumed, but 
their names are enrolled in the book of life. 
Over and over again in the Hebrew Scriptures 
we find allusions to a heavenly register, in which 
the names of God's highly honored ones are 
written. The psalmist speaks of the fearful 
curse of being "blotted out of the book of life," 
and Daniel is told of the triumphant deliverance 
of "every one that shall be found written in the 
book." Paul also speaks of his "fellow workers 
whose names are in the book of life." We may 
learn Jesus' s own estimate of this glory and 



240 BACCALAUEEATE SERMONS 

honor from what he said to the seventy dis- 
ciples who returned from their mission rejoicing 
that demons were subject unto them in his name. 
"Rejoice rather/' said he, "that your names are 
written in heaven." 

This great assembly and church of the first- 
born must needs enroll upon the heavenly records 
all such worthies as are named in the eleventh 
chapter of this epistle. For these, and all others 
who have joined the heavenly hosts, are further 
described as "the spirits of just men made per- 
fect." Such classification and enrollment must 
also include that great multitude which John 
saw arrayed in white robes and palms in their 
hands, who came up out of great tribulation and 
stand in holy triumph before the throne of God. 
"And he that sitteth on the throne shall spread 
his tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no 
more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the 
sun strike upon them, nor any heat; for the 
Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be 
their shepherd; and shall guide them unto foun- 
tains of waters of life; and God shall wipe 
away every tear from their eyes." 

To be united with those choice spirits in their 
heavenly glory is the consummation of the com- 
munion of saints. What reunions, what recog- 
nitions, what glad surprises among those spirits 
of the just made perfect! How strange that 
any who believe in immortality and eternal life 
should ask if saints will know each other in the 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 241 

heavenly realm! What! know less there than 
here? What! love less there than here? David 
looked forward to a meeting again with his lost 
child : "I shall go to him, but he shall not return 
to me." Jesus enjoined us to make friends even 
by means of Mammon, "that when it shall fail, 
they may receive you into the eternal taber- 
nacles." He assured the dying malefactor by his 
side, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." 
The vision of Moses and Elijah talking with 
Jesus in the holy mount of his transfiguration 
is an intimation of the glory that shall be real- 
ized by all the spirits of just men made perfect. 
It was a happy and forceful saying of Richard 
Baxter that if he did not fully expect to see 
and know his friends in heaven, he could not 
love them half so well in the present world. 

From some one, I know not where, I have 
heard or read this beautiful confession: "When 
I Avas a little boy I thought of heaven as a great 
city with gates of pearl, and foundations of 
costly stones, and streets of pure gold. Each 
gate was guarded by an angel, and in the dis- 
tance hovered a great flock of those dazzling 
winged creatures, for whom I could have no fond 
desire. And that was all that heaven was to 
my childhood fancy. But by and by a little 
brother died, and I still thought of the same 
glorious city and the angels, and one little fellow 
with whom I was acquainted. Since that time 
another and another have passed from earth to 



242 BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

heaven — father and mother, and friend after 
friend, whom I loved as my own soul. But at 
last one of my own children died, and then it 
seemed as if a part of myself were there. And 
so it has come to pass that I now have more 
acquaintances and friends and loved ones in 
heaven than I have on earth, and I have lost 
sight of the gates of pearl, and streets of gold, 
and even the angels have all but faded out of 
my sight, and I now think of heaven as the bliss- 
ful home of the countless spirits of the good 
whom I have known, and loved, and lost awhile." 
I know of nothing in our literature more beau- 
tiful and touching than the poet Whittier's 
tribute, in "Snow-Bound," to his sister, with him 
"one little year ago," but then "bathed in the 
holy peace of Paradise," and "looking from some 
heavenly hill." 

And yet, dear heart! remembering thee, 

Am I not richer than of old? 
Safe in thy immortality 

What change can reach the wealth I hold? 

What chance can mar the pearl and gold 
Thy love hath left in trust with me? 
And while in life's late afternoon, 

Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
I walk to meet the night that soon 

Shall shape and shadow overflow, 
I cannot feel that thou art far, 
Since near at need the angels are; 
And when the sunset gates unbar, 

Shall I not see thee waiting stand 
And, white against the evening star, 

The welcome of thy beckoning hand? 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 243 

God the Judge — Jesus the Mediator — Blood 
of Sprinkling 

And now, coming to the climax of this heavenly 
communion and fellowship, we notice three ex- 
pressions which are more awe-inspiring than 
Jerusalem the golden, far above angels and 
principalities and powers, more blessed and 
glorious than all the spirits of just men made 
perfect. "Ye are come to God, the Judge of all, 
and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, 
and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh 
better things than Abel." These hallowed words 
call for no special exposition here. They may 
be left to make their own profound impression. 
"The best of all is, God is with us," cried John 
Wesley in his latest hours. To have the Judge 
of all the earth, at the last hour, our blessed 
Friend is the highest boon. But we are given to 
think of God as so holy and so immeasurably 
high and lifted up as to be far beyond our fel- 
lowship. Did he not say to Moses that no man 
could see his face and live? Did not Isaiah after 
his vision of Jehovah sitting on his throne cry 
out in terror, "Woe is me! for mine eyes have 
seen the King, the Lord of hosts"? If God be 
so infinitely high, and man so miserably low, 
how can God and man have personal communion? 
Who shall bring such far extremes together? 

Here we behold at once the mystery and the 
reason of Christly mediation. Jesus the Medi- 
ator brings the far extremes together. By the 



2U BACCALAUREATE SERMONS 

uniting of Deity and humanity in his own 
anointed personality he shows how God and man 
may be at one. "I am the way," he says, "and 
I am the truth, and the life. No one cometh 
unto the Father but through me." Moreover, 
this epistle to the Hebrews magnifies the doctrine 
that our highest glory is attained through suffer- 
ing. Even God, the Judge of all, has a long- 
suffering spirit, "for it became him, for whoni 
are all things, and through whom are all things, 
in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the 
author of their salvation perfect through suffer- 
ings." And so it is that, as a climax of all highest 
and holiest things in the range of spiritual life, 
we are directed to "the blood of sprinkling that 
speaketh better than Abel." The voice of Abel 
cried unto Jehovah from the ground on which 
his blood was spilled by a brother's murderous 
hand, but the blood of vicarious suffering has 
been ever crying out and atoning for the bitter 
wrongs of sin. "The blood of Christ, who through 
the eternal Spirit offered himself without 
blemish unto God," crieth forever from the cross : 
"Father, forgive them ; they know not what they 
do." Christly sufferings lead to Christly tri- 
umphs, and if we suffer with our Lord, we may 
also with him be glorified. 

And what need Ave say more? Behold the 
blessedness and the glory of the communion of 
the saints of God! Who would not wish to be 
among them? Yet, alas! there are so many 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 245 

human hearts that seem to care for none of these 
heavenly things. Many will travel afar to see 
the great cities which human hands have reared, 
but have no longing for the city of the living 
God, the heavenly Jerusalem. How many ad- 
mire the gigantic mountains that lift their heads 
sublime into the clouds, but they will not come 
to Mount Zion, the mountain of the Lord's house, 
though it towers in golden splendor far above 
all other summits and offers visions of eternal 
day. Many are they who are ambitious to have 
their names enrolled among the mighty, or 
graven on the tablets of fame, but they will 
make no sacrifice to have them written in the 
Lamb's book of life. They covet fellowship with 
men of wealth and power, but feel no drawing 
toward the spirits of just men made perfect. But 
how much nobler they who have learned to set 
their affections on things heavenly and holy! 
How much more Godlike, and Christlike, and 
how unspeakably more blessed they who are 
obedient to the heavenly visions, and "come unto 
Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, 
the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable 
hosts of angels, to the general assembly and 
church of the firstborn who are enrolled in 
heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the 
spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus 
the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood 
of sprinkling that speaketh better things than 
that of Abel" ! 



INDEX 



Abbott, 225. 

Achilles' shield, 23. 

Ackerly, 222. 

Adam of Saint Victor, 149. 

iEneas, 24. 

Alexander, 62, 63, 64, 93. 

Alexandrian theosophy, 153. 

Amusement — prohibition, 195. 

Ammerman, 222. 

Animal suffering, 126. 

Animism, 43. 

Angels, 19, 61, 236, 237, 238. 

Ansgar, 65, 69. 

Apollos, 101. 

Apostles' Creed, 229. 

Asbury, 214. 

Athanasius, 70. 

Augustin, 65. 

Augustine, 70. 

Baal-prophets, 57. 

Bacon, 70. 

Bangs, H., 220. 

Bangs, N., 216, 217, 218. 

Bangs, N. H., 224. 

Bannister, 76. 

Barton, Clara, 66. 

Baxter, 82, 241. 

Beach, 222. 

Belshazzar, 9. 

Bennett, 76. 

Benson, 183. 

Beulah-land, 21. 

Bible and God's Word, 107. 

Biogenesis, 161. 

Birch, 224. 

Boniface, 65. 

Bottome, 225. 

Bouton, 224. 

Breakey, 224. 

Brooks, 101. 

Brown, C. S., 225. 

Brown, P. R., 223. 

Buck, 222. 

Bunyan, 65, 73, 82. 



Burgess, 8. 
Burns, 6, 22. 
Butler, Bishop, 182. 
Butler, William, 66. 

Call to ministry, 100. 

Caesar, 93. 

Calvinism, five points, 208, 

209. 
Carey, 65, 119. 
Carpenter, 220. 
Carter, 224. 
Causation, 124. 
Chadwick, 224. 
Chipp, 222. 
Christ in art, 141. 
Chrysostom, 101. 
Church, 229, 230. 
Clark, 226. 
Clarke, 184. 
Clement, 148. 
Coate, 201. 
Coke, 183. 
Coles, 222. 
College and theological school, 

120. 
Columba, 65. 
Comparative religion, 30, 35, 

36. 
Confucius, 2, 13, 36, 129, 133. 
Constant ine, 68. 
Conviction of sin, 84. 
Cowper, 101. 
Crawford, 227. 
Creed, Apostles', 229. 
Croft, 225. 
Crooks, 225. 
Crosby, 210. 
Cummings, 52, 76. 
Curry, 220. 
Cyril, 65. 
Cyrus, 9, 93. 

Dante, 22, 70. 
Darius Hystaspis, 8. 



247 



248 



INDEX 



Darwin, 124. 

Davies, 214. 

Decalogue, 10, 39. 

Denniston, 222. 

Design- argument, 122, 123. • 

Diligence, 114. 

Divorce, 40, 41, 42. 

Dow, 215. 

Draper, 224. 

Drummond, 161. 

Edwards, 71, 82. 

Elijah, 19, 27, 57, 58, 59, 101, 

135, 145. 
Elisha, 101. 
Elliott, 65. 
Ellis, 225. 
Enoch, 19, 145. 
Euripides, 33. 
Evolution, 124. 

Faith-cures, 54, 57, 117. 
Fasting, 180, 194, 195. 
Faust, 157. 
Ferguson, A. H., 225. 
Ferguson, S. D., 220. 
Ferguson, S. I., 224. 
Fero, 225. 
Ferris, I., 222. 
Ferris, W. H., 227. 
Fervent ministry, 112. 
First-born saints, 239, 240. 
Fitch, 225. 
Fletcher, 183. 
Floy, 220. 
Foss, 226. 
Foster, 226. 

Garrettson, 216. 
General Rules, 177, 178. 
Goethe, 157. 
Goodsell, 220. 
Gorse, 224. 
Goss, 224. 

Greek philosophy, 153. 
Griffin, 221. 

Hammurabi, 31. 
Hare, 225. 
Hearn, 224. 
Hebrew language, 3. 



Hebrew slavery, 11. 

Hebrews, Epistle to, 230, 231. 

Hedstrom, 225. 

Heraclitus. 42. 

Hibbard, Billy, 218, 219, 221. 

Ilibbard, F. G., 220. 

High-Churchism, 181, 194. 

Hindu mystic, 155. 

Holy Club, 174, 179, 181, 205. 

Holy Seed, 88, 91. 

Homer, 23, 32, 33, 72, 129. 

Hunt, Holman, 141. 

Immortality in Old Testament, 

19. 
Incarnation, 81, 155, 156. 

Janes, 226. 

Jerome, 149. 

Jerusalem, golden, 18, 245. 

Jesus, personality of, 130. 

Jesus, not omniscient, 132. 

Jewett, 221. 

Jezebel, 59. 

John Baptist, 119. 

Justin Martyr, 64. 

Justinian, 13. 

Keys of kingdom, 61. 
King, L. H., 227. 
Knox, 119. 

Landon, 220. 

Laotsze, 36. 

Law, exalted by Jesus, 39. 

Lee, 203, 221. 

Lincoln, 68, 196. 

Literary treasures of the Old 

Testament, 3. 
Logos, 150, 151, 152, 153. 
Longfellow, 52, 67. 
Luckey, 221. 
Luther, 65, 71, 82, 235. 
Lycurgus, 13, 31. 

Manu, 31. 
Mansel, 129. 
Marks, 224. 
Martindale, 220. 
Matheson, 81. 
Matthews, 224. 



INDEX 



249 



Max Muller, 32. 

McCabe, 226. 

McClintock, 225. 

McKendree, 216. 

Memnon, 74. 

Merwin, 201. 

Mesha, 8. 

Messianic prophecy, 18, 92. 

Methodism: 

Agencies of, 183. 

Arminian, 187, 188. 

Calvinistic, 187, 188. 

Catholic spirit, 189, 191, 193, 
211, 212, 213. 

Doctrines, 187, 191. 

Episcopal, 186. 

Future outlook, 191, 197. 

Growth, 192. 

Liberality of, 190. 

Literature, 183, 184. 

Losses, 111, 192. 

Methods, 185, 186. 

Origin of, 177, 183. 

Superintendency, 186. . 
Methodius, 65. 
Miley, 225. 
Millard, 225. 
Milton, 6, 72. 
Minister's command of time, 

115. 
Minos, 31. 

Miracles, 54, 117, 118, 119, 120. 
Mohammed, 129. 
Moody, 103. 
Morris, 208. 
Mosaic legislation, 10. 
Mother-love, 47, 140. 
Mystery of God, 42. 
Mystery of love, 49. 
Mystery of sorrow, 91. 

Napoleon, 129. 

Neal, 149. 

Nebuchadnezzar, 93. 

New Jerusalem, 234. 

Newman, 226. 

Newton, 70. 

Nichols, 220. 

Nightingale, Florence, 66, 67. 

Nirvana, 155, 170. 

North, 224. 



Numa, 31. 

Oakley, 220. 

Old Testament in desuetude, 

27. 
Origen, 148. 
Olin, 220. 
Olshausen, 164. 
Osbon, 222. 
Osborn, 222. 
Ostrander, 219, 221. 

Passion in God, 139. 
Pantheism, 49, 142, 170. 
Pastors, 110. 
Patrick, 65. 
Paul, 63, 101, 104. 
Pay son, 82. 

Personality, 101, 103, 113, 128, 
129, 144, 170, 172. 

of Jesus, 130, 131, 144. 
Pindar, 32. 
Plato, 33, 129, 133. 
Pope, 6. 

Power of God, 135. 
Prayer-test, 55, 57. 
Prentice, 224. 
Prologue of John's Gospel, 157, 

158, 159. 
Pulpit themes, 109. 

Raphael, 141. 
Rawlinson, 7. 
Raymond, 77. 
Recognition in heaven, 240, 

241. 
Reed, 222. 

Reformation in England, 181. 
Revelation, personal, 80. 

universal, 31. 
Rice, Phineas, 221. 
Richardson, 222. 
Ridgaway, 76, 226. 
Rigby, 97. 
Rinaldo's shield, 24. 
Rogers, 222. 
Rousseau, 182. 
Rubens, 141. 

Sakya-Mouni, 129. 
Sanford, 221. 



250 



INDEX 



Sargon, 93. 

Schaff, 149. 

Sectarian divisions, 195. 

Selleck, 222. 

Seney, 221. 

Seward, 40. 

Shakespeare, 70, 129. 

Shalmanezer, 93. 

Simpson, 82, 101. 

Smith, 224. 

Snethen, 201. 

Socrates, 33, 36, 129. 

Solon, 31. 

Soul of the world, 42-49. 

Soule, 215, 216. 

Spicer, 220. 

Spurgeon, 101. 

Stanley, 116. 

Staple of Methodist preaching 

188, 207. 
Stevens, 182. 
Stratton, 221. 
Struggle for life, 125. 
Suffering of God, 49, 50, 244. 

Tasso, 24. 

Taylor, Bayard, 157. 
Taylor, Isaac, 182. 
Taylor, William, 66. 
Teaching Church, 105. 
Teaching of Jesus, 39, 40. 
Tertullian, 64. 
Thatcher, 214. 
Thoburn, 66, 119. 
Thorwaldsen, 141. 
Townsend, 225. 
Trench, 30. 



Troy, plain of, 62, 63. 
Tyndall, 161. 

Ulfilas, 65. 

United Society, 175, 177. 

Vail, 225. 
Vergil, 23, 72. 
Vincent, 224. 
Vindictive psalms, 28. 
Vision, man of, 82, 83, 93, 103, 

104, 105. 
Voltaire, 182. 

Wakeley, 223. 

Walsworth, 224. 

Wardle, 225. 

Washburn, 221. 

Watson, 183. 

Watts, 22. 

Waugh, 226. 

Wesley, C, 22, 83. 

W T esley, John, 65, 71, 116, 119, 

174. 
Westcott, 148. 
Whitefield, 71, 101. 
Whittier, 242. 
Willard, Frances, 66. 
Wisdom of God, 132. 
Wood, 220. 
Woolsey, 220. 
Word of God, 132. 

Xenophon, 129. 

Zion, 233, 245. 
Zoroaster, 129. 



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